By My Heart And Soul
by TalkingToTulips
Summary: A cursed King forced to live from the sunlight and in a Kingdom of darkness; a mortal Queen struggling to save herself from an uncertain fate. When one finds the other, a story that they won't tell in children's books unwinds with only two rules: be careful what you wish for and hold onto your soul…
1. Prologue

**So, here I am with a new story! It won't be as long as Once in a Blue Moon, at the moment I'm predicting 10-12 chapters as they're going to be longer than the chapters of Once in a Blue Moon. Updates will be about once a week, except this weekend where the prologue and the first chapter will be released today and tomorrow. This is because I've already posted the prologue on Tumblr and whilst it's been edited and fleshed out a bit, I need to give my Tumblr followers something new! **

**Have no fear I'm going to continue with In Many Moons, expect a drabble or two in the next week. One will definitely be future Klaroline, but if you have any requests, just pop it in the review on that story or send me a message! **

**Anyways, here's the prologue! **

**Song: Mercedes' Lullaby - Pan's Labyrinth **

* * *

_******A cursed King forced to live from the sunlight and in a Kingdom of darkness; a mortal Queen struggling to save herself from an uncertain fate. When one finds the other, a story that they won't tell in children's books unwinds with only two rules: be careful what you wish for and hold onto your soul…**_

* * *

Caroline had been told the stories as a child, of the Kingdom of Souls. Even though she'd come from a deeply religious family, her grandmother's family had passed on stories and fairy tales of Gods and monsters that played with the mortal world like humans played cards. But the one story that stuck in the blonde princess' mind was the stories of the Kingdom of Souls told by her grandmother as she brushed her granddaughter's hair.

It was described as a world where the dead roamed. The evil received their punishment and the good received their rewards in the kingdom's wonders. Only the moon shone there, and nothing could grow except in a magic garden that surrounded the palace of the King of Souls.

The King of Souls was the most fascinating character to the young princess, even though she never knew his name. Apparently, the legend said that anyone who knew his real name had been killed so they could never use it against him. He was simply known as the King of Souls to his subjects and the mortals.

He was the son of a powerful witch and the Great King, who reigned over a great kingdom in the sky. He and his five siblings had been given land in the mortal world to preside over and he'd been a kind and just ruler to his subjects until it was discovered that he was in fact a bastard. In a rage, he had killed his father and taken the throne for himself and seized the entire kingdom in the sky and the mortal realm, plunging the world in darkness.

His brothers and sisters were forced to capture him and cast him into the world where the sun did not shine, as he wished for darkness to reflect his dark broken heart. They would not forgive his crimes, but could not kill him or leave him alone for eternity, as they still loved their brother. They knew that without power of some sorts, he would find a way to rise and destroy them all so made him the Lord of the Dead where he could not influence the living.

To further his punishment and ensure he would never escape, he was cursed so he could not walk in the sunlight with, and the living could only enter his realm by the act of death. Well, there was a second way to make his acquaintance.

"Doesn't he get lonely?" Caroline asked as her grandmother told her story one afternoon. The sea breeze floated through the room as the princess sat on a footstool and her grandmother in her armchair. Her governess sat sewing passive aggressively in the corner, angry that her charge was being distracted from her lessons. The blonde turned to her grandmother. "I would get lonely if I had to live with dead people!"

"Caroline, face front." Her grandmother insisted, turning the princess back so she could continue to do her hair. "The King was not always lonely. Sometimes mortals visited him in his realm."

"Really?" Caroline's eyes shone brilliantly.

"It is said that if you make a blood sacrifice under an oak tree in the light of the full moon, you will be transported to his realm for the night."

"But why would you do that?"

"It's said that if a mortal enters his realm under the light of a full moon, he will grant them a request. People go and ask him for favours and make bargains with him. He can stop wars with a wave of his hand for your first-born child. He will find you a good husband for a night of dancing with him." Caroline crinkled her nose at the first idea but perked up at the second.

"I love to dance! I'll dance with him!" She volunteered.

"You already have a husband found for you, and there's none better than a Prince." The voice of her tutor rang from the corner to ruin the princess' fun as she continued to sew with one eye on the Forbes grandmother and granddaughter. Caroline sank into her spot, deflated and her grandmother chuckled as she tied off her daughter's plait and smoothed it down her back. "These stories of witchcraft are not appropriate for a future queen either." She insisted bitterly.

Caroline indignantly stuck out her tongue. "They're only stories!" She cried. "And I don't want to be a silly Queen! I don't want to leave home, I want to stay here and dance!"

Her tutor blanched whilst her grandmother howled with laughter, enjoying her granddaughter's spark. "Please don't encourage her, Duchess." The Governess begged the older woman as she put her sewing aside and stood up. Caroline stayed firm in her grumpy face against the woman's cold face of anger. "Princess Caroline, you shouldn't be so ungrateful. Your father has found you a good husband to marry you when you are of age, and you will be Queen of a grand kingdom and have everything you wished for."

"But I don't want to marry him!" Caroline replied, tears forming in her eyes.

"Well, you can't have everything you want." Her governess insisted, straightening her skirts. She then excused herself to check on the Princess' lunch, shutting the door behind her. The moment the door shut, Caroline burst into tears, putting her head into her hands and sobbing loudly. She didn't want to get married; she didn't want to leave her home when she was 17.

Her grandmother quickly picked her granddaughter up and let the eight year old sit in her lap. She held Caroline to her chest as she cried, humming a soft lullaby to try and soothe her granddaughter's fears. "Don't worry, pet, it'll all be alright in the end. You might like your husband." She spoke, knowing her words would be little reassurance to a young girl who had only nine more years with her family.

"Can't you ask Papa to reconsider?" Caroline stammered through her words, pulling away and pouting her grandmother.

"I'm afraid that I can't, your mother tried when you were a baby but it's your father's decision who you marry." The Duchess explained to the sad little girl.

"I wish I were never born!" Caroline whined with indignation, throwing her arms up in the air and sobbing dramatically. It had only been a few weeks since her father had sat her down and explained that she would be marrying a foreign Prince when she was 17 as part of a peace treaty, and the Princess had not reacted well in the slightest. "I don't want to marry a Prince, I want to stay here with my brothers and Papa and Mama. I don't want to be a Queen, I wish I were dead!"

"Hush, you don't mean that, you are young and young people always think they are facing the end of the world with every problem." Her grandmother assured her, tapping her granddaughter's nose. Caroline sniffed and wiped her eyes on her gown. "You are very strong and you will endure, Caroline. But you should always be careful what you wish for." The old woman added.

Caroline didn't understand what she meant but nodded. "I will."

"Promise me?"

"I promise." Caroline vowed.

* * *

**Did you enjoy? Did you hate it? Let me know what you thought in the review and I'll see you for Chapter 1 tomorrow for your first taste of Klaus...**


	2. Bargaining

**So, welcome readers to Chapter one of this fic. Nicole, the amazing Nicole (nfinneman) has made a beautiful cover for this story so thanks to you for letting me bribe you. She got to read this chapter, so if you're still on the fence, go ask her and she'll convince you. Or Kaitlin but she's my wifey so she's biased. **

**Anyways, from this point on, the chapters will be once a week and be about 3,000 words each time. This one is 3,500 words actually, so that should help you guys with the long update times. Be sure to let me know what you think in the reviews, and I'll see you in the next chapter!**

**OH! And I've been nominated for Author of The Month for March with the Klaroline magazine, so thanks to those guys and head over to their site and cast your vote, even if it's not for me. All the nominees are awesome and talented, and deserve your votes. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

_"Who are you then?" _  
_"I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good." _  
_― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: First Part_

* * *

When Caroline had been young, she had wished that she were dead. She wished that she had never been born or that God would come wipe her off the face of the earth before her 17th birthday came and she would be forced to leave her homeland to marry the Prince her father had picked out for her. Every day before she slept, she would pray that someone would come and take her away once she arrived at her new home and return her to her parents.

She should not have wished that she were dead, she should have wished that she had never grown up.

Caroline had been betrothed to a prince from another kingdom since before she was born. Her mother had been pregnant when the peace talks had begun and when it was predicted that the Queen would give birth to a girl, her father had offered his unborn daughter in marriage to the neighbouring King's young son. A few weeks later, Caroline had been born and the treaty was sealed. The pair would be married when she turned 17.

She had never met her fiancée, as the journey across the seas was long and not suited to a young child. Her father had sat her down when she was eight and explained that whilst her brothers, Stefan and Damon would be staying and learning how to be rulers, Caroline would be leaving when she was 17 and marrying Prince Lorenzo, though he preferred Enzo.

After a couple weeks of temper tantrums and begging her father to reconsider, lessons in becoming a Queen began for the Princess. She was taught a complete history of the country she was bound for, all the etiquette and customs she would need, how to speak, act, dress. Whilst her brothers played on the beaches, she was stuck inside reading ancient tomes of books that her future nation's philosophers had written.

She had been perfectly primped to be the most beautiful according to the standards of the country she would one-day rule, forced to eat light meals whilst her family ate pork and chicken and other delights to keep herself healthy and skinny. She had to wear all sorts of different gowns than the other girls so she would used to her new kingdom's fashions and don't get her started on the corset she had to wear day and night to make sure her back was straight and way she had to wear her hair that made her scalp ache.

Eventually, the day of her 17th birthday came and her brothers found her weeping into her pillows rather than jumping up to open her presents. She refused to leave her bed even to see the gown and shoes her mother had had made for her, knowing she would be wearing them when she walked into the court of her future home. Stefan brought her some old books in their country's language that she had loved as a child; among them was a storybook.

"Queens don't need story books." Damon teased, to which Caroline threw her copy of a romance novel at her older brother.

"Shut up." She sniped. Her older brother commented that that wasn't very Queen like and she threw her pillow. "I'll start throwing my hardbacks if you don't learn not to say mean things!" She threatened.

"Okay, you two, don't fight today. Caroline, look at these pictures." Stefan warned, opening the old storybook to show his little sister the illustrations. Caroline almost cried at how beautiful and detailed they were, telling stories with the words on the next page. "Our grandmother sent them; she said that you might like this one." He indicated a particular story, which told the story of the King of Souls.

"I remember this story," was all Caroline could say.

"Do you like it?" Stefan asked his younger sister tentatively. Caroline closed the book and clutched it to her chest, tucking herself into her brother's chest and beginning to cry as she nodded. Stefan sighed and wrapped an arm around her. Damon watched the scene and sat on the bed so he could rub Caroline's back as she continued to cry. "It might not be that bad, Caroline." He tried to console her.

"It's going to be awful." She decided. "I shall surely go mad and kill myself." Caroline vowed.

"You won't kill yourself." Damon assured her, sighing at how overdramatic his little sister could be sometimes. A few seconds later, he tried his hand at reassuring her a little better. "If this Prince hurts you then you write to us and we'll send the army and navy to come get you." He teased.

"There's no point to sending the navy, it's landlocked. They would have to sail up the river or march with the army." Caroline wept even further, remembering that she wouldn't see the ocean again after she arrived in her new land. She was a child of the sea; she'd spent all her life by the ocean. She couldn't imagine life away from it, the thought made this whole thing even more unbearable. "I don't want to leave," she whined once more.

"We know." Stefan told his baby sister.

* * *

Caroline had to leave though, and did a week later. Her parents and brothers delivered her to a special ship with an infantry of soliders to protect her. They kissed her cheeks and waved her off and thus her journey began. Three days on the sea, crying in her quarters and another two days carriage ride on the Kings' road and she eventually arrived in her new kingdom.

She was welcomed to fanfare and a ball thrown especially for her, but she was too tired to dance and retired to her chambers early where three maids who had been picked for the detail of waiting on her were waiting. Caroline sat at her vanity table as the maid undid her hair, looking a rose that her future husband had given her upon her arrival. "The Prince couldn't stop staring at you." Her maid told her with a smile.

"Hmmm." Caroline replied nonchalantly, wondering why nobody had told the Prince that she much preferred tulips to roses.

"You will look beautiful in your wedding dress." She added, trying desperately to engage the Princess in conversation as she began to unlace Caroline's corset. Caroline stood to make it easier and cast a look over at the white gown that had been waiting in her rooms when she had been shown them. It needed to be taken in but would be ready for the wedding in a week.

Once the maids had helped her out of her ball gown and into her nightdress, Caroline climbed into bed and dismissed her lades. She pulled her storybook out of her bag and into her lap, reaching through each of the stories with detail as the sleeves of her gown became stained with her tears.

The next day, she was standing in her wedding dress as the seamstress measured it to be taken in. Caroline knew that she must have looked a vision, but she didn't care. Her heart felt like a stone at the bottom of a river, being pulled along with the current and eroded away until it was dust. "Absolutely wonderful, Your Highness. You and the Prince will have truly beautiful children."

Caroline smiled graciously and thanked her for the compliment but her heart began to race faster in her chest. That was only one duty that they could not teach her with tutors and books: bearing a male heir.

Attempts to provide her husband an heir began soon after the marriage became official: a grand ceremony in the city's cathedral with all the politicians and nobility from the land there. Her parents and brothers had been unable to attend but Caroline barely noticed, going through the motions as if she was a machine. She danced with her husband, kissed him at the altar and swore her love for a man she'd barely met.

Enzo was pleasant enough, he certainly didn't seem cruel or abusive like some of the horror stories she'd heard. They barely spoke however and when they spent time together, they found they had little in common and exchanged small talk over wine, avoiding talk of the circumstance that had landed them here.

Caroline hoped to bear a child quickly and have something that was hers in this new land, and please her husband and her father in law but months went by without any signs of pregnancy. Months quickly turned into years and three years after her marriage and Caroline had not gotten pregnant yet, to her husband's impatience though he never said anything directly, she heard the whispers and the rumours and could only prayed that the King lived a long life so she might have more time of being a princess and not a Queen with a nation needing a prince in the cradle. She needed time, she needed an heir or her head might be the price.

Five years later, there was still no baby despite a few close calls. The King died in his sleep after a yearlong illness and Caroline was crowned Queen in the same cathedral that her marriage ceremony had taken place. With national pressure, her efforts to conceive filled almost every waking thought. She read every book, saw every witch, doctor, and expert, drank every potion and concoction they presented her with. She even considered visiting another man's bed but thought against it on deep reflection.

Nothing worked. Caroline was barren, she had long known that it was the case but couldn't bear to face the fact.

It wasn't until she was sat at her window during the full moon one night that her childhood stories entered her mind. Her grandmother had said that when a mortal entered the Kingdom of Souls, they were granted their desires. Caroline stood in her dress, having promised her maids that she could get out of it herself and that she needed some time alone, walking over to her book shelf and taking the story book that Stefan had given her.

She opened it and scanned over the story to make sure that she remembered correctly. "And the King decreed that any mortal who entered his realm would be granted a wish to thank them for visiting them in his loneliness…" She whispered to herself as she read, her finger tracing the words as she went. There were no pictures of the King, nobody knew what he looked like but there was an imagined drawing of the palace in which he lived. "Those who entered would offer blood from their palm under the light of a full moon by an oak tree…" She recited.

Caroline replaced the book, and looked down at her hand and to the letter opener on her desk. There was an oak tree in the gardens where she regularly took her walks and they were empty this late at night, guards were only stationed at the edges of the garden and if she wished to be alone, they wouldn't follow her. Without thinking, she grabbed the blade and her cloak, pulling it around her shoulders and beginning into the gardens.

Mud clung to her silk gown as she trudged through the wet grass and the winter chill. Caroline arrived at the roots of the oak tree towering over her, bringing the knife to her hand and slicing into the flesh of her palm. She hissed at the pain but it was short lived.

Caroline wasn't sure what made her move but she felt driven to do so. Blood fell from the wound onto the old roots of the tree, and she knelt at the tree like it was her king. She prayed and begged for something to happen and closed her eyes, squeezing them tight as she pressed her bloody hand to the bark of the tree. "Please, please, please…" She whispered to herself, tears spilling from underneath her eyelids as the cold wind blew.

Suddenly, the cold wind vanished from around her. A warmth surrounded the Queen and the ground underneath her became firm and strong, and she opened her eyes in surprise to see she was kneeling on a stone floor instead of grass. She was now knelt in a grand ballroom made of marble and dark stones that reflected the moonlight that filled the hall from large archways that led to a giant garden.

Hundreds of candles flickered around her and made her warm, illuminating the long dining table of food and drink that took up about a quarter of the room. At the head of the table, a man sat regally in a grand, tall-backed chair with a smirk, fingers pressed together as he watched the Queen looking around confused, having not noticed him yet.

"So the stories are true!" Caroline exclaimed in a whisper, another tear falling down her cheek.

"True as you and me." The man speaking was the first time she noticed his presence, swirling around to see him watching her. He looked like he'd been sat there for days, waiting for her. Caroline almost leapt to her feet and demanded to know who he was but she already know who he was. The King of Souls. He stood and bowed to the Queen, smirk fixed into place. "Your Majesty, it is rare that royalty such as yourself graces my palace. But I suppose those who have everything have no need of bargains with fairy tales." He greeted her, straightening up and approaching her.

The King offered his hand and bid her to sit by his side, eat some of the feast prepared before it went to waste. The blonde Queen numbly let him lead her to a second seat, just grand as the one he sat in. He put a portion of the divine looking food onto her plate, encouraging her to try the foreign looking dishes that she'd never seen before. Not one to be ungracious as per her years of training, Caroline tried everything and drank some wine. It tasted positively magical.

The blood from her wound clung to her goblet and the King reached forward to snatch her hand before she could wipe it on her gown, having only just noticing that she was still bleeding. She squeaked with surprise as he took her hand but flexed her palm to let him get a closer look. He examined the wound and pulled out a coil of thick silk to bind the gash, pressing a kiss to the wound.

"It will be healed by the time the full moon sets." He assured her, placing it back on the table. "Speaking of which, we have only a few more hours before you must sadly return...unless I can convince you to stay." He teased.

"I don't think you can, Your Majesty." Caroline whispered graciously, taking another bite of a heavenly tasting cheese.

"Is there anything I can do for you then?" He asked her curiously, as if he already knew. She blushed deep red and took another sip of wine to hide her embarrassment. Now she was here and this was not a desperate folly, Caroline realised that asking an ancient witch king to stop her being barren was ridiculous. "No mortal enters my realm without a wish in mind. A dark desire. Now, tell me yours." His voice was smooth as if he cast a spell on her, extracting the truth from her lips.

"I wish to give the King an heir." She spoke calmly, he raised one eyebrow. "My husband and I have been trying to have a child for eight years with no avail, and I have heard that my husband is beginning to talk about tossing me aside and marrying his mistress who has provided him with a bastard child. It's dangerous for a King not to have an heir in times like these, and the duty of the Queen to provide one, a duty that I have failed." She explained shamefully.

"No man with sense would toss you aside." The King soothed her worries with his lilt, reaching out to brush some curls from her face. "I will grant you your wish, but you understand that there will be a price." He explained.

Caroline nodded. "I will pay you whatever gold you want."

He chuckled darkly. "I do not deal in money, Caroline. I deal in matters of the heart." The blonde froze; she had never told him her name. She did not know his name; the story never mentioned it because he was scared of having it used against him. Names were powerful, as her grandmother had told her. He took her bandaged hand from the table and kissed the back as if to reassure her before waving forward a servant who had been lingering in the arches that led to the garden.

A young brunette girl placed an ornate glass bottle of a red liquid and quickly scarpered under the King's glare. "Drink three drops of this every night, but do not lie with your husband until the new moon. Make whatever excuses you must, or the magic will not work. On the next full moon, you must return to this realm and every full moon after until the child is born."

"You've avoided the subject of payment." Caroline pointed out, regarding the bottle with suspicion. It could be poison for all she knew. The King chuckled darkly and leaned back, having not expected her to be so vigilant.

"I will share this potion with you if you allow me to share my bed." He proposed. Caroline's eyes widened and she stood up, snatching her hand from his grasp and insisting that he was insane. "I get very lonely and it has been a long time since a mortal as beautiful as yourself has wandered into my land. If you are concerned about making your husband a cuckold, then you must remember that nothing can grow here in my realm other than the garden and the food there, graciously granted by my siblings. There is no chance of natural conception here."

"But why this? I have treasures and gold and power..." She begged with him.

The King of Souls shrugged and began to speak. "Payment must be something important to the customer so one might measure the worth of what I offer against what they already have in their lives and stand to lose. Men have sacrificed all their worldly goods for talent, and women give away their first born children to marry a good man. All of them made the choice to sacrifice and now you must too. Will you let another man into your bed so you may put a Prince in the cradle? How important is your desire to you?" He asked her calmly.

"I may lose everything if I don't do this."

"Then the choice is even easier." He replied offhandedly, dismissing her concern. "Your life and a child for one night in my bed, Caroline, the choice is yours but choose wisely because there is no going back once the bargain is struck."

Caroline blinked and regarded the bottle once more. "This potion will work?" She asked him.

"In a year, you shall have a prince. I swear my realm on it." He promised her smoothly, standing and approaching her once more. "But I must have an answer now. Do we have a deal?" He reminded her.

Caroline's voice shook as she replied. "We do."

The King's eyes darkened as he smirked at her answer. Caroline had seen that look earlier in her marriage when there had been excitement to sex because it was new and exciting but now it was more of a task than a pleasure. He brushed some hair from her face tenderly, taking another step so they were inches apart. Her heart beat faster in her chest, and she swallowed thickly as his hand came to her lower back and held her there. "Shall we seal it with a kiss?" He asked teasingly.

Caroline looked up to meet his eyes once more; her husband didn't kiss her during sex anymore. He sometimes pressed a kiss to her neck or shoulder, but their lips rarely touched. Her cheeks warmed at the thought. "Are you nervous?" He teased, leaning in till their lips were brushing. She didn't respond. "Soon you won't be, soon you'll be writhing and begging for my touch." He promised her.

And then he kissed her.

Caroline nearly gasped at the explosion of passion that she'd nearly experienced before and could only bring her hands from where they'd been sitting on his chest to grasp his curls. He nipped at her bottom lip experimentally and she whined, clutching at his hair as she tried not to lose herself.

Caroline opened her mouth to his tongue when it darted out against her lips. He smirked against her and used his hand against her back to bring her closer to his strongly built body. She moved one hand to the lower nape of his neck and moaned against his lips. For a second, Caroline couldn't remember why she was here and kissing this man but she knew that she didn't want to stop.

Soon she found herself, don't ask her how, in a bedchamber she assumed was the King's. It was dark blue marble, animal fur and designed to catch the moonlight whilst a fire roared in the corner by an old armchair. Caroline wasn't paying attention to any of these details as the King stood behind her, kissing her neck as he unlaced her corset and freed her upper body of the constricting material. "These dresses get more ridiculous as time goes on…" He muttered darkly as he nipped a spot under her ear. "It's as if men don't want to be able to take them off."

Caroline chuckled, unable to think of anything but him as he palmed her breasts in one hand and pushed her dress down her hips with the other. She tried to step from the yards of fabric that made up her gown but found herself lifted before she could command her body to move. He placed her on the bed and smirked, towering over her and going to capture her lips once more.

She closed her eyes and lost herself in bliss.


	3. Dreamwalking

**Thanks for all your wicked support! The reviews, alerts and favourites are very appreciated! I haven't got much to say today, so I'm just going to jump straight in and I'll see you on the next chapter! Don't forget to leave a review and make my day a lot better! **

* * *

_"Hope is a waking dream." _

_- _Aristotle

* * *

A moan.

A flash of bare skin.

A tangled set of sheets.

A cry of pleasure.

A murmur of her name.

All these memories blurred together for Caroline as the King of Souls pressed her into the sheets and made her scream out. She didn't scream his name, only screamed for mercy and more. He didn't just take care of his own pleasure; he took care of her own. She was trembling and sated by the end, unable to speak or move by the time the King was kissing her nose and telling her to sleep with the voice of a lover.

When Caroline woke, she was no longer in the King's bed. She was back in her own chambers in the mortal realm, and everything was the exact same as she'd left it but she wasn't the same. She began to sit upright as she tried to clear her head, it thumped like a drum and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears.

Had it all been a dream? A complete vision of her deepest desires? Caroline thought to herself as she rubbed her head and stretched her tired muscles. She didn't wake her maids to attend to her. Instead she climbed out of bed, still in the gown that the King of Souls had pulled off her the night before only the corset laces were loose down her back and the mud was staining the fabric.

She almost walked by it on her way to her vanity table to begin brushing out her hair so she could prepare for her maid and begin to get ready for the day, but the object caught her eye and she turned to check it wasn't all in her mind.

The little bottle of red liquid sat on her bedside table, full to the brim with a dropper in the lid so she could administer her daily dose. Three drops, no more no less and only at night, just as the King had instructed her. Caroline picked it up and held it in both hands, the evidence that she needed to prove that it had not been a dream. She pulled off the lid and smelt the potion; it had a deep and potent earthy smell with a hint of salt like the ocean breezes where she'd grown up.

Before she could examine the bottle any further, her maids began to enter the chambers. The Queen quickly opened the cabinet drawer where she kept personal effects and hid the bottle inside as the maids came in and bid her good morning, asking how she slept. Caroline smiled and turned to greet her staff. "Are you alright, Your Majesty?" One maid asked, looking her up and down as she still wore her dress from the night before. "You look flushed."

"I'm fine. I was too tired to change and the bed was too warm is all," She assured the maids, who took this excuse as truth and continued about their business of preparing her for another day at court. They combed out her hair and applied her makeup, helped her pick out a gown and shoes. One maid looked confused by the mud trampled into her gown but Caroline dismissed it, telling her maids that she'd gone on a walk during the day with her husband's dogs and one had disappeared into the bushes. The maids only smiled and took the dress to be cleaned.

Caroline suffered through the rest of the preparations with thoughts of how to stop her husband from visiting her bed until the new moon and excitement to try the potion. She had only little doubt that it would work, but her heart told her that it was the real thing. Her mind also dwelled on the memories of the pleasure she'd experienced the night before with the King of Souls. Her cheeks would flush every time she thought of it and her maids would always ask if she was feeling well.

Eventually Caroline realised that she could use her maid's worry to her advantage. It was half way through the evening feast with the court and her husband that the Queen asked to retire to her chambers. Her husband looked concerned and asked what was wrong. "Nothing, it's just a headache and I feel hot." She explained, fanning herself with a napkin. "It might just be my corset." Caroline threw in, putting a hand on her chest to emphasis her inability to breathe.

"Go and lie down, Caroline. I hope you feel better." Enzo told her softly and in a concerned tone before her ladies rushed forward to help the Queen out of her chair. She stood and the court stood with her, allowing the Queen to pass by and out of the hall before they continued with the festivities.

Caroline was helped into bed and fed a brew from the kitchen that was supposed to help with her ailment, of which she drank every drop though it tasted vile. She pretended to cough and splutter, knowing her husband would not visit her if she were ill and risk getting sick himself without an heir to succeed him.

When the time to retire came, Caroline had some tea made and asked her maids to leave her for the night. They wouldn't leave her completely alone, of course. Her dutiful maids would stay outside her bedroom in her chambers in case she needed them and play cards all night. They would wait for her to worsen or recover and be ready to tell the King as soon as the doctor needed to be fetched.

Once the staff had cleared out and she was alone, she took the potion from the drawer and slowly let three drops fall into the tea with careful precision. It turned the whole cup of liquid red before her eyes and she brought it to her lips. It tasted exquisite, like a hundred flavours at one moment on the tip of her tongue. She drank down the tea quicker than she liked and put the cup aside, allowing herself to fall to sleep with thoughts of the King in her mind.

Following his instructions precisely, she kept the appearance of illness for another week before recovering and re-joining the court. She knew her husband would be cautious to even be near her until he was sure that the illness had passed so she allowed the court doctor to poke and prod her and declare that she was perfectly healthy in time for the new moon.

Before her night in the underworld, she hadn't known real sexual pleasure. Sexual intercourse was about conceiving a child and pleasing her husband, she had not known that she was capable of such exhilarating emotions and sensations. Her husband paled in comparison to the King of Souls, but this was business. She needed him to impregnate her or this would all be in vain.

After that, it was simply the waiting game. Caroline continued with her life as if nothing had happened, the only thing that was different was the three drops that she continued to take with her tea every night once the staff was cleared out. She watched, as the new moon became fuller and fuller every night, waiting patiently with excitement for her next venture into the Kingdom of Souls.

* * *

A few centuries back, Klaus' siblings had granted him a gift for not being a menace and keeping to himself, only interacting with the human world when the mortals came to him. It was a looking glass that he could use to see the mortal world and the sunshine that he hadn't felt on his skin for years. His siblings and he had used a similar one in their youth to see into the mortal world from their own realm, and they knew how much it meant to him.

Klaus had placed it on a wall in one of the many rooms in his palace and closed off the room to everyone but him and his most trusted advisors. He placed a chair that resembled a throne in front of the mirror and sat there watching the mortal world for hours at a time sometimes, but lately he had been focused on the blonde Queen who had visited him during the last full moon.

He watched one evening as the Queen added her daily dose of the potion he'd given her to her tea. He smirked as the Queen went to the window and drank her tea, looking out at the gardens. The King didn't hear his advisor, Marcel, enter the room as he played with another bottle that he yet to fill with another month's supply of the potion.

The full moon was approaching him and she would need this elixir. He'd been smart to give her only 30 days' worth at a time to make sure she returned and upheld her side of the bargain. She would addicted to this potion by the time the moon was full again and begging for another taste. Klaus also knew that she wouldn't be able to resist coming to see him again, that she would be scared not to come and face the consequences.

"Does she know yet?" Marcel asked as he stood behind his King, and Klaus' only real friend in this realm.

Klaus didn't answer the question immediately; he took a small blade from an end table by his throne where a glass of wine sat. He sliced a line down his palm and clenched his fist, holding the bottle underneath his bloody hand so the glass container quickly filled with his own blood. By the time his wound had healed, the bottle was full to the brim. He capped it and placed it aside. "No, but she will soon." He assured as he handed the bottle to Marcel.

The younger man took the bottle without question and held it up to examine it as he corked the bottle. He glanced at the image of the Queen as she finished her tea and began to climb into bed. "Tell Sophie to replicate the spell she placed on the last bottle and be quick about it." Klaus instructed, knowing that Marcel wouldn't leave until he had his orders. "And if she gets it wrong, then I have a special place in the pit with her name on it."

Marcel nodded and left the King to his musings.

* * *

Caroline did the same as she had the previous full moon, waited for her maids to leave for the night and went for a walk. She wore her best gown and one of her necklaces her mother had given her, and began to the oak tree. Another blood sacrifice and she was opening her eyes to the wonders of the marble palace. It took her breath away as quickly as it did the first time and she smiled to herself.

This time the table was not there but the King was waiting, a thick velvet cloak draped over his arm. She hadn't knelt this time so he quickly swept around her and wrapped the cloak around her shoulders, even though she was already wearing a thick shawl. He pulled that off and discarded it with no trouble. "What's this for?" She asked him curiously.

"We'll be taking a tour of the gardens, and the breeze can get quite cold out there for mortals." He explained as he pulled out another bandage for her bloody hand, wrapping it with caution and care. The King pressed a kiss to her hand and she blushed deeply.

She let him do all this without speaking a word. She didn't know what to say, it had been two weeks since she'd last slept with her husband and she had been feeling sick every morning for the past three days. But Caroline didn't want to thank him just yet, she had had many close calls before and her mind could simply be playing tricks on her. The Doctor had said that when a woman wanted a baby badly, her body became to show symptoms to appease her psychological desires.

He smiled and offered his arm. "Shall we?"

Caroline looped her arm around his and let him guide her out into the gardens where flowers and trees of all seasons and colours bloomed in the moonlight. She had no idea how it worked, but she assumed that it was deep and powerful magic that her grandmother had told her about. She wondered what her grandmother would say if she knew the fairy tales were real, or her Princess had made a deal with the King of Souls.

Fireflies danced unashamed around their heads though the King looked displeased whenever one came near him, which made Caroline giggle. He looked over at her as she laughed with a look that was half annoyed, half amused at her laughing. "Do I amuse you, Your Majesty?" He asked, a smile playing on the edge of his lips.

She promptly stopped, wondering if she'd displeased him and was about to incur a immortal's anger. "No, I just-" Caroline trailed off, pressing her lips together firmly. She decided to change the subject as they passed some rose patches where roses of all colours bloomed happily in the breeze. "I have run out of the potion that you gave me." She explained.

"I will have another month's supply ready for you by the time you leave; you are still to drink three drops a night until the next full moon." He assured her, patting the back of her hand where it was curled around his upper arm. Caroline sighed in relief and nodded, not sure what the potion's purpose was but now she knew that she would be drinking it until the baby was born. "I trust that you followed the rest of my instructions?" He asked her in a tone that implied that he knew the answer.

Caroline nodded, not wanting to go into the details. She was still too proper to talk about sex, even with a man who had made her scream only a month ago. Her nod was shaky and unsure, like a private addressing their captain, causing the King to look at her with a smirk and chuckle. "Do I amuse you, Your Majesty?" She repeated back his earlier words bravely.

"You look unsure, as if you don't trust me." He explained. "Have I given you any reason not to trust me?"

Caroline narrowed her eyes, wondering if it was a trick answer but his eyes were filled with question so she answered. "I don't know anything about you, and you're promising me the world. It's a little hard to be trusting of someone when you don't know their name, or what possible motivation they could have for helping me when all the stories I was told painted you as someone unkind and wicked albeit a bit lonely." She looked apologetic at her words and pressed her lips together once more.

The King continued to lead them through the gardens back towards the palace and pondered what she had said. She stayed quiet for this time, watching her feet as she placed one in front of the other. Caroline may be a Queen in the mortal realm, but in his presence she felt like a common woman, a mere mortal talking to a God.

There was a few minutes silence before he spoke again. "Klaus."

"I'm sorry?" Caroline asked, confused.

"My name is Klaus." He told her as they walked over a little bridge that was stretched over a small pond in the garden. Her heels tapped against the wood as they walked and his boots thudded. Caroline mouthed the name once and smiled, knowing she was among a select few who knew his real name. She felt special and honoured. "That is what you may call me." He added.

A few spirits of the dead milled about tending to the plants and enjoying its beauty, looking up when they saw their King and the mortal Queen approaching. Some looked shocked at the presence of a mortal in their midst and on the arm of their King but recovered quickly. Those close enough bowed when they passed.

Klaus continued a few moments later, choosing his words carefully. "And most of what you've heard is true; I will not play the part of the victim who was put in this realm with no charge or reason. I have done terrible things and I have little regret for doing them. Millions have died because of me. But when a mortal comes to my realm and asks for help, if I feel them worthy and it benefits me to help them, then I shall."

"And how does my providing an heir in the mortal realm benefit you?"

"All in good time, Your Majesty." He assured her. "Now, shall we adjourn to the dining room? You are eating for two at the moment." Klaus reminded the Queen. He cast a look down at her stomach and smirked knowingly. Caroline bristled slightly but smiled warmly back, eager to eat some more of the exotic wonders he'd put before her during her last visit.

Klaus didn't wait for an answer, beginning to lead her back towards the palace via a stone path. She followed him, dazed by his mystery and his confidence, as well as the gnawing feeling that he was hiding something dark from her.


	4. Dancing

**Thanks everyone for all the wonderful reviews, I'm glad that you're all enjoying the story and that some of you are already theorizing. Well, you'll get no easy answers from me, I'm not giving anything away. But no matter, it's time to get the ball rolling and there's some faces people may recognise in this chapter as well as some throwbacks to the prologue. Bonus points and a mention to anyone who catches the Hades and Persephone reference ;D**

**I'm posting today because I'm going to be busy tomorrow, but it'll be business as usual next week!**

**Enjoy and don't forget to review!**

* * *

_"Then like my family motto, I am 'the most happy'."_

_ The Tudors - 1x09: Look To God First _

* * *

Caroline blinked unbelievingly at the midwife a few times, shocked. She felt numb, her heart was pounding, and she couldn't stand if she wanted to right now. Her legs were jelly and she had the heart of a hummingbird. "I'm sorry, can you repeat that please?" She asked the woman as she sat on her bed in her chambers, which was covered in animal furs and blankets as they were approaching the dead of winter and the cold was getting worse by the day.

She had been feeling unwell for days now, hardly able to keep anything that wasn't her daily dose of the elixir down. Caroline should have asked Klaus for something to soothe morning sickness on her last visit, she would think to herself as she lay in bed. Her maids had finally succumbed and called the midwife when Caroline began craving apples as well as the strange fruits Klaus had fed her, she believes he called one a pomegranate. The Queen had waited with baited breath for the midwife's conclusion.

The midwife smiled. "I said that your Majesty is with child, about a month along I would say. I predict that the baby will be born in the early summer months and that you're both perfectly healthy." She explained, going into further detail than her original diagnosis. Caroline heard very little of this however, still in a shock from what she'd just been told so her words were practically wasted. It had been exactly one month since the new moon on which she and her husband had tried to conceive, the one Klaus had promised would bring her a Prince with the new moon cycle.

She was carrying her husband's child.

Her maids were in the corner, grinning like idiots. They had waited just as long as Caroline to hear this news, being the same maids who had dressed Caroline on her wedding day, helped her prepare for her wedding night. They had consoled her when her first false alarm had occurred a year into her marriage, tended her when she was sick and calmed her the day she was crowned. "Congratulations, Your Majesty." The midwife added before going to leave. She gave the ladies some quick instructions about what foods and activities the Queen should avoid which they took in like sponges and then said her goodbyes.

Once the door was closed behind the midwife, her ladies scurried forward with a squeal. Caroline found herself bombarded with congratulations and questions about names and genders and parties to celebrate. She swallowed in her first proper breath since she'd been given the news. "Ladies, let me breath." She told them, standing up and taking a few steps away from her maids.

"Sorry, Your Majesty." One muttered.

"We're just so happy for you." The other beamed.

"The King will be thrilled." The last one chipped in. Her maids were like the heads on a hydra, one working organism sometimes. It was scary how in sync they were to the Queen even after eight years of them tending to her. She blinked at their words and nodded, reminding herself that this was not only her news. The whole kingdom had been waiting for this for a long time, as had her husband. "We'll call him and you can share the news." The third maid grinned.

"Please, don't!" Caroline interjected before she could speak. Her maids looked confused and one tilted her head. The blonde simply wanted a bit of time with the news alone, she had waited for eight long years for the moment she would become a mother and now it was here. She pressed her lips into a line. "I mean, please tell the King that I would like to see him this afternoon, I would like be alone until then. I'm tired and I need some time to process this news." She explained.

The maids quickly looked understanding and smiled to themselves as they curtsied and began out of the room to deliver the news to the King that his wife wanted to speak to him. Caroline let out a deep breath when she was alone again, biting her lip and sighing in relief. She fell back on her bed sheets, staring at the ceiling as she grumbled to herself about busybody maids.

After a few moments' of calm and silence, Caroline cast a look down at her stomach with a secret smile. Many women her age were already mothers three or four times over and had been much younger than Caroline was now when they first experienced the sensation of impending motherhood. The knowledge that there was a child growing inside her, her own child after years of waiting, hoping, praying and pleading.

Her mother had been 19 when she'd had her first child, though he hadn't survived infancy and Damon had been born a year later. There were originally six Forbes children. The first-born had died of pneumonia when he was a year old, already with a little brother to replace him as the heir to the throne. Between Stefan and Caroline, there had been a princess who died a few hours after being born and another son after Caroline who had died of a plague that swept their land one winter.

Caroline had known that she would be encouraged to have as many children as she could to make sure that her husband had an heir but she had struggled with one, and she would protect her child until her dying breath.

She smiled to herself and put her hand against her barely rounded stomach with wonder, closing her eyes once more.

* * *

A grand feast had been prepared three days after Caroline found out the news of her pregnancy and the church bells in the castle had been rung for hours after the announcement was made. People came from far and wide to bless her and her child when she came onto the city streets to give money to the poor and talk to her people though she was heavily guarded as per usual.

She sat by her husband's side when he made a toast to her and their child at the feast and smiled like a fool the entire time. Caroline had been always worried that she had built up the vision of happiness she would achieve by having a child in her mind and it would not meet her expectations but she felt warm and happy for the first time in ages.

Caroline wrote a letter to her family with the news and asked them to promise to visit when the baby was born. She hadn't seen her family except a few times over the last eight years. Her father came to court once more but their relationship was still icy from years of distance.

Damon and Stefan visited her at least once a year and she would treasure her time with her brothers, each time they would ask her if her husband had been cruel to her and each time she had insisted that he had been gracious even in the face of her failure and the humiliation it brought him. Her mother had been afraid to travel for a long time so Caroline had not seen her since she was 17 and she missed her like a hole in her heart that refused to heal.

"To Queen Caroline." Her husband toasted.

"To Queen Caroline!" The crowd chanted back.

* * *

Klaus had seen the announcement of the Queen's pregnancy through the looking glass and knew that she would be aware of her pregnancy when she next entered his realm, but he hadn't expected her to barrel into him the moment she appeared to him at the next full moon. She threw her arms around his waist without permission or shame and thanked him a hundred times with the zest of a schoolgirl. She grinned stupidly as she pressed her head into his chest.

The King was still for a moment when she first attacked him, not sure how to react to the gesture but tentatively reached his arms around her to accept the embrace, rubbing her lower back as he did so. It had been the most intimate gesture the King had received in years, even from a woman who had shared his bed before. He leaned his nose into her curls and let her perfume and the smell of sunshine envelop him for a few seconds.

He realised that the Queen had begun to cry onto his chest from the shaking of her shoulders and used his hands on her shoulders to pull her back. Her eyes were red and raised but she was smiling at him regardless. "What's wrong? Are you not happy? Is this not all you wish?" he asked her curiously, leading her through from the ballroom. He pulled her into a smaller retiring room where she could sit on a comfortable velvet couch.

The room was covered in paintings from all of the world and a fire burned in an ancient fireplace that Klaus had designed himself during his endless renovations of the palace to keep himself occupied. Klaus sat her down and tried his best to calm her down as she continued to cry.

"I _am_ happy." She insisted.

"I am sensing a but there." He commented wryly, handing her a glass of water that a maid had brought them. Servants and maids were always lingering in this palace like an invisible workforce that could anticipate the court and its King's every want and need. "What is wrong, Caroline, tell me and I promise that I will make it right. You are after all…" He promised, trailing off and stopping himself before he could finish that sentence.

She wasn't ready.

Caroline however fixated on his hesitance, as was the way with women. "I am after all what?" She asked him curiously, her brow crinkling as she took a sip of the water. She eyed him over the top of the water goblet.

"You after all are my customer." He smirked, covering his mistake easily and hoping that she took this response as what he was about to tell her. Caroline smiled meekly at his words and Klaus filled with triumph, continuing on with his trail of thought as if there had been no interlude. "Now, I have only have you for a few hours and I shouldn't like to spend them with you crying into your drink." He insisted as she took another sip and then put the glass aside.

He reached out and used his thumb to wipe away a few stray tears that continued to leak from her wet eyes. "I shouldn't like that either." She admitted timidly, leaning into his hand slightly.

"We shall make them count, and as the expectant mother, you shall choose what we do." He promised her, only wanting to make her happy, make her smile if only for a few hours before she returned to the mortal realm where she always seemed so sad or scared even if she was the Queen. Her happiness from her pregnancy seemed to be genuine but Klaus knew that it would be short lived as was always the way with royalty and the ruling class.

"Can we dance?" She asked tentatively. "There's such a lovely ballroom just beyond those doors and it's a shame that nobody ever seems to be dancing in there. And my midwife has forbidden me from dancing until the baby is born for my health." Caroline explained, looking towards the ballroom they'd been standing in a moment ago and smiling shyly once she'd finished her explanation.

Klaus smirked and stood up, offering his hand to the Queen. She sniffed and took his hand so he could pull her up to her feet and dust off her gown that was just as grand the one she'd worn the full moon previous except in a dark, purple rather than red. "We shall dance all night if it pleases you." He promised her. She grinned brilliantly and led her to the middle of the ballroom.

"There's no music." She reminded him.

"Not for long." Klaus smirked, waving his hand and Davina, one of his servants, dashed off like the wind down the garden steps. Caroline raised an eyebrow; curious to what he had planned, wondering if an entire foray of musicians would appear out of thin air for a second. Instead one young boy with black curly hair carrying a violin appeared by Davina when she returned. "Timothy, pleasure as always. Perhaps you can offer us some dancing music?" Klaus requested.

The young spirit bowed to them both and then began to play, the sound echoing around the room. Davina hovered behind the boy, mesmerised as he began to work the violin strings and caress them with his bow.

The King stepped back and bowed to the Queen before offering his hand to her once more. She giggled and took it, letting him arrange her and begin to lead her around the dance floor to the tune of the violin, which sang out a sad, soft tune. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and listened to the music as if it were speaking to her and trying to find the story within the notes as she had as a girl.

"Do you play?" Klaus asked curiously.

"No, my father didn't want me wasting my time when I could be learning something more practical." She explained sadly. Caroline opened her eyes as they continued to dance and she met his eyes. "My mother had this beautiful pianoforte in her chambers that she let me play sometimes. She would sit me in her lap and put my hands on the keys and move my fingers so that I played the songs she learnt when she was a girl." She smiled.

Klaus smiled back. "Well, you seem quite the capable dancer."

"I loved to dance though when I was growing up, Nobody but my brothers would dance with me at balls because it's tradition never to dance with a woman whose betrothed. Stefan would let me dance all night with him; Damon was a little more reluctant." She explained, moving her feet elegantly in time with his. She had forgotten about the girl and boy in the corner, in a world of her own. "When I was little, my grandmother told me your story."

"Oh?" He asked, amused. "And how did you react?"

"I told my grandmother that I would come and dance with you to keep you company. My tutor couldn't believe what I was saying, she almost died of shock when I told her that I didn't want to get married and that I would rather spend my nights dancing with an immortal King than be Queen." Caroline chuckled at the irony that her childhood fantasy had turned out to be true. Klaus laughed at this anecdote and continued to lead them around the floor. "Sometimes I think that this is all just in my head and you're not really real." She admitted.

"I can pinch you if you like to check that you're really awake." Klaus smirked, moving his hand from her waist to pinch her upper arm. She made a noise of complaint and swatted his hand away, which he promptly returned to her waist and smirked. She smiled at his joking nature and adorable smile. "I'm not sure what sort of mad, unhappy soul would dream me up." He commented.

"Is all this real, then?" She asked curiously.

"Real as you and me." He promised her, paraphrasing the first words he ever spoke to the Queen. She smiled at his answer and continued to dance with him, her feet quickly wearing out as Tim continued to play softly.

She began to understand why her midwife had forbidden her from dancing and laid her head on Klaus' chest, not wanting to stop just yet. His hand moved up from her waist and began to stroke her hair soothingly as she tucked her forehead into his head, facing it sideways. Letting her eyes close, they began to slow in their dance and eventually the music trailed off.

Caroline felt herself being lifted and carried through the halls of the palace, but didn't open her eyes again until she felt a warm mattress underneath her. Slightly panicked, her eyes snapped open and she sat up to see Klaus was standing by the bed he'd placed her on and looking at her quizzically. She looked around at the room; it was an unknown bedchamber of deep purple reds that looked fit for a Queen. She ran a hand through her curls and pressed her lips together. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"I'm fine; I just got a little startled is all." She explained.

"You should lie down." He reassured her, sitting on the edge of the bed beside the Queen and encouraging her to lie down. She did so, letting him remove her shoes and put them aside with a smile. She placed her head down and her hair fell around her on the pillow as she tried to get comfortable, easily done considering how warm and soft the bed was. She smiled meekly.

"This is always my least favourite part; saying goodbye," she told him in a matter of fact tone. Klaus smirked triumphantly and nodded in agreement.

"It's not forever." He reminded her, brushing some hair from her face and watching as she yawned. Caroline was surprised that she was being so unladylike around an immortal King and quickly put it down to being comfortable around him. She was most surprised when he leaned forward to take her hand and kiss the back, holding it in both hands. He squeezed it and smiled. "Good night, Caroline."

"Good night, Klaus." She smiled before closing her eyes.


	5. Disobeying

**So here's another chapter on Friday because my weekend is looking a little chock-a-block and I don't know how much time I'll have on the computer to post. Thought I would play it safe than sorry. So here we go with Chapter 4 and don't forget to review!**

* * *

_We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things,_  
_things that have bad consequences. _  
_But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward. _

- Alison Croggon

* * *

"Why must I drink this potion?" She asked him during the next full moon as they ate, a most important part of her visits to his Kingdom. Klaus made sure that the kitchens worked for days to prepare the meals that would be presented to the blonde Queen, the most decadent and exotic food she could imagine. Davina had delivered another bottle to them during their salad of exotic fruits that her country had not even discovered yet, and it sat between them like the elephant in the room.

"For the health of the child." He explained casually between sips of wine, casting a glance to the bottle and remembering how he'd filled it with his blood so that the witches could do their work a few days before. By the time they were finished, his blood was one of many ingredients in the elixir but arguably the most important. "A weak heir is worse than no heir at all, in some cases."

"What would happen if I didn't drink it?" Caroline asked nervously, picking at her food as she breached the topic.

"Nothing good." Klaus didn't go on, knowing that knowledge meant that you could learn not to fear it. He instead decided to let the deepest fears that hid in the back of her mind and all her insecurities creep up to fill the blank of what would happen to her if she disobeyed his orders and didn't drink.

Fear inspired action, as Klaus had learnt in his long life. He needed her to be drinking three drops of this potion once a day, every day. No more, no less. There could be no exceptions. Caroline looked pale at his words and took a deep drink of water, swallowing it thickly and staring into space for a second. "Tell me about your family. You speak so passionately about where you were born but I haven't heard much about your family." He decided to distract her.

"I could say the same for you." She quipped between sips of water, still gaining her bearings. He cast a look and she smirked confidently. Caroline had been reading the stories of him and his siblings for the last month now, trying to learn as much as she could from the tales. It was unclear how many siblings he had, as they appeared in different forms with different names across the storybook but they were described as immortals that were practically Gods, each with their one affinity. Klaus was of course the Lord of the Dead, but his sister was painted as the Goddess Protector of women.

Caroline began to explain her upbringing. "I was raised in a castle by the sea, it was absolutely beautiful. My new home is landlocked so I haven't seen the ocean in years but my father used to take me and my brothers down to the beaches during the day and we used to play there, he would threaten to throw me into the water if I misbehaved." She chuckled at the memories of her toes being dripped into the cold water as her father held her up by her waist.

"Did you have a good relationship with your father?" He asked.

She hesitated before answering. "My father was always more attentive to me rather than my brothers, which is rather unusual as I'm only a girl but it became much clearer when he explained about my betrothal. I suppose when you consider that he had sold me as a peace offering when I was still in my mother's womb, his spoiling me and treating me differently becomes a little easier to explain." Her voice had started out light and joyous and descended slowly into darker and bitter tones.

"My mother used to coddle my sister so too, but because she worried Rebekah would feel left out being surrounded by boys all her life." Klaus replied. Caroline's interests piqued at this first voluntary mention of his siblings, he rarely spoke about them without coaxing. She gestured for him to go on, quickly taking a bite of her food so she couldn't speak. "I have four brothers, two older and two younger. And one sister." He explained.

"I have two older brothers," she countered. "Do they ever visit you here?"

"Rebekah visits once every decade or so, Elijah every so often. The others only come when they all are visiting and that hasn't happened in a very long time. Not since they gave me the looking glass." He explained. Caroline looked interested and confused at the way he said looking glass like it wasn't ordinary. He smirked, put down his goblet and pulled her to her feet. "Since you asked so nicely, I'll show you." He chuckled, teasing her about her questioning look. Caroline grinned and let him lead the way.

They arrived in the room where he kept the Looking Glass a few minutes later and he told her to cover her eyes. She clenched her eyes shut so she was sure she wouldn't peek as he led her by the hands until they were inches from the glass. He took one hand and placed it on the glass, putting his over it. His touch would set the glass' magic working but he wanted her to experience the wonder for herself. He leaned forward and whispered into her ear, his breath tinkling her ear. "Think of the person you want to see most in the world and open your eyes."

Her eyes fluttered open as the image on the glass wavered a little and changed from a reflection to the view of a room. It was clear from the sea views that spilled out of the windows that this was her childhood home; she remembered the colour of the stone and the paintings on the wall and the red velvet drapes.

Caroline grinned stupidly as she took in the room with the beautiful pianoforte in the corner by the windows and the books that lined the shelves. Most importantly, she smiled at the woman who sat in the corner sewing with her maids, talking with them like old friends and smiling. Klaus watched as she took in this scene with wonder and smiled himself. "Is that your mother?" He guessed.

She nodded, a tear slipping from her eye as she kept her hand on the glass as if she could reach through and be by her mother's side. "I haven't seen her in eight years." She told him quietly.

"I haven't seen my mother for nearly four hundred years, if it's a competition." Klaus quipped in response as if to lighten the mood. It worked; she smiled and ducked her head as she laughed, slowly removing her hand from underneath his and stepping back from the mirror. He sensed that she didn't want to see anymore and waved the image away, watching their reflections return. "My siblings gave it to me so I might be able to watch the mortal world." He explained as she took a seat in the same chair he'd sat in and watched her for months now.

"What do you watch?" She asked, putting her hands in her lap. One hand brushed her stomach where her small bump was beginning to form but not obvious under her gown and petticoats. Klaus tracked the movement with his eyes but didn't comment on it.

"Empires rising and falling, squabbling politicians, people who are predicted to come seeking my help so I might decide whether they're worthy." He listed off casually, turning from the Queen to glance at the mirror and then back again.

"And what made you decide that I was worthy?" She asked curiously.

"That will be my little secret for now." He told her, not missing a beat as he walked over to the throne on which she sat. He enjoyed the irony of her sitting on his throne, baby in her belly and Queen of another kingdom and realm. She put one hand on the arm of the chair and crossed her ankles. "What is important is that I decided that you were. I could have turned you away the moment you entered my realm like I've done for countless others who seek wealth or power."

"As well as not being to your benefit." She quipped.

"Well, I can't do everything from the goodness of my own heart or people will start talking and soon this place will be flooded with selfish mortals every full moon." He smirked, looking out the window to see the moon hanging in the sky. Klaus sighed and turned back to the blonde, cursing the mortals for their short moon cycles. "The moon will be setting in your land soon." He added almost sadly.

Caroline's own face fell when she realised that she would soon be returning to her own land, standing up so she was almost toe to toe with the King. "Thank you." She told him once more before pressing a kiss to his lips softly. Klaus was taken aback by the Queen's move and brought her closer by her waist. Her hands moved up into his hair like they had done during their night together and kept him close. "Until next time." She promised.

"I look forward to it." He smirked.

* * *

Caroline watched as the snow fell on the palace grounds from the window, her storybook in front of her as well as a letter from Stefan that had been delivered yesterday. Her maids were turning down her bed and tidying the rooms. She smiled as she read over the letter. "You haven't smiled like this for a long time, Your Majesty." One of her maid commented as Caroline's fingers brushed the paper.

When her maids said 'a long time', Caroline knew that they truly meant never. She smiled and played nice in court and in front of her husband but Caroline was always miserable when she was alone in her rooms or with her maids. Caroline had only been genuinely happy when she was reading letters from her brothers or her family were visiting. Now that she was pregnant, she was at peace.

"What does your brother write?" Another maid asked as she folded Caroline's blankets that she'd been making. Though they tended to be a little full on, her only friends were her maids and they were always there when she needed help. She knew that when she confided in them that they were sworn not to speak a word of what she said to anyone, not even her husband.

"He sends his congratulations and promises that he'll come see me after the baby is born." She paraphrased Stefan's wording, not wanting to tell them the full intimate details of what she and her brother were writing as it wasn't always flattering. She wrote in anger and sorrow, happiness and frustration and knew that Stefan and Damon would understand. "And Damon adds that he hopes that I consider Damon as a name," she chuckled, imagining her brother saying that as he stood over Stefan.

Her oldest maid, a black haired girl called Jennifer, came over and took Caroline's empty tray of lunch from her desk. Her eyes lingered on the pictures of the storybook Caroline had open to the story of Klaus and his siblings. "I remember these stories," she smiled to the Queen though she must have been inferring the stories from the pictures as the words were in Caroline's mother tongue. "My mother told them to me."

"Are you going to read them to the baby?" Her second maid asked.

Caroline smiled, smoothing her hand over the pictures and nodding. She was certain that she would tell her child about the King of Souls, the man responsible for their very existence and read them this story, teach them her mother tongue. "I'm sure that I will." She assured her maids before standing, dressed in her nightgown, which made her small baby bump more prominent. "Ladies, you're dismissed." She told her maids.

They all curtsied and said good night before filing out the room. Caroline smiled to herself and climbed into bed, too tired to remember the most important part of her nightly routine. The red elixir sat in her drawer, waiting for the Queen but she was asleep before the moon could fully lift itself into the sky.

* * *

"When are you going to tell her?" Davina asked curiously as Klaus watched Caroline reading her storybook that evening by the fireside. It had begun to snow in her land a few days previous and her maids bustled about to keep her and the child warm during the night. The full moon was approaching fast but it felt like forever to Klaus and he hoped it felt the same to Caroline. Even through the blanket she had over her lap, he could see the rounded stomach of growing life.

Klaus pretended not to have heard the young witch, who had died early in life before her full abilities could be discovered and he had offered her a place in his court. "The longer you lie to her, the more she's going to hate you." She insisted.

Klaus turned his gaze on the brunette as if her words meant little to him. "I shall tell her when I tell her, and that is none of your concern." He told her as he picked up a new bottle that he'd just filled with his blood. "What is your concern is to make sure that you and Sophie have this ready for the next full moon, and to tell Marcel that I will be attending the court today." Klaus commanded as he handed the young woman the bottle and she nodded, beginning out the room.

Klaus had originally seen every soul that entered his realm and decided where to place them: eternal peace or punishment. When wars and epidemics raged with untold death tolls, he delegated the task to his most trusted advisors and occasionally sat in on more important cases or heard appeals from those who felt wrongly judged. He knew it was his duty to care for the dead, but that didn't mean that he truly cared for them.

He finished off the glass of wine he had been enjoying when he saw Caroline dismiss her maids. She then began climb into bed, wrapping herself in blankets and fur throws to keep herself warm. Klaus furrowed his brow as she pressed her head into the pillow, obviously exhausted and stood from his spot. Klaus waited and waited but Caroline had fallen asleep without having taken the potion. Klaus fumed at the girl's carelessness and swore to himself as he threw the goblet into the corner and stormed out the room.

* * *

Caroline hadn't meant to forget to take one dose of the elixir but she had been too exhausted to remember to take it after she dismissed her maids. The pregnancy was making her tired and forgetful. She woke in the morning, her hair all over the place and still in that sweet spot between awake and asleep when the thought of what she'd forgotten hit her. Caroline gasped and sat upright in a state of panic. The Queen reached into her drawers and brought out the bottle she kept in there along with her journals and letters, quickly taking the required dose.

She choked on the pure taste, the rich, concentrated flavours swelling up inside her mouth and making it hard to breathe for a few seconds but she recovered. Caroline stood up and went to the window, pushing aside the curtains to check whether the sun had risen. The moon was not in the sky but the sun hadn't come up yet. Caroline hoped that would save her and the baby. Klaus hadn't explained what would happen but she had waited so long for this that she wasn't about to risk it.

To be sure, she spent the day in bed and complained of swollen feet and a headache. Her maids tended to her all day and hovered even though she insisted that she just needed rest. Her maids looked concerned but tended to her every need, knowing that they would have to answer to the King if she became ill during her pregnancy and put the baby at risk.

Noon approached and Caroline was beginning to feel like she was in the clear when she felt it. A clenching feeling in her stomach. She grit her teeth and curled into the mattress, holding her stomach and beginning to pray that this wasn't the end for her child. The sun was high in the sky as she continued to feel it, like someone had taken her guts and twisted them again and again but there was no blood.

Her midwife had told her that there was rarely any cause for alarm when there wasn't any blood and her advice proved a comfort when the sensation disappeared after a few minutes and didn't return. When night came, she took her required dose and vowed never to disobey his instructions again.

It was not as easy to convince him.

"I gave you simple instructions and you disregarded them, Caroline. For a woman who has waited eight years for this, you seem rather willing to gamble with your child's life." He spoke darkly when she arrived in his realm that full moon, he stood waiting for her with darkened, angry eyes. Caroline had known this was coming but she still ducked her head to try and hide her embarrassment, biting her lip until it nearly bled.

Caroline had thought over and over what she was going to say to excuse her actions but there was no excuse. She had disobeyed him. Instead of trying to worm her way out of accountability, she apologised profusely and promised it would not happen again, cupping her stomach as she did. "See to it that you do, and as payment for your forgetfulness, you'll come here during the new moon and the full moon from now on." He responded icily. She looked up at his declaration.

"I thought mortals could only enter-"

"Mortals will enter when I want them to enter. I deemed you worthy for what I gave you; do not prove me wrong, Caroline." He cut her off sharply. She let a couple of tears slip from her eyes as she felt the white hot strike of shame and heartache in her chest. Caroline brought her hand up to her mouth to muffle her sobs as she descended into frenzy quickly, having been extra sensitive to emotion these past few months since she'd become pregnant. She ultimately turned her back on Klaus, not caring if he yelled or if he was finished.

She heard a sigh and felt him come up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and letting her turn into his chest. Caroline cried a little harder in his arms, clutching at his shirt as she did. He did not console her, remain stoic but his hand rubbed her lower back until her sobs subsided. He obviously did not want to encourage her by telling her everything was okay, but did not want to alienate by leaving her to cry alone.

"Come, no more tears. Let us enjoy what time we have together, I know you won't do it again." He begged of her, leaning back to cup her cheek. Caroline nodded, letting his thumb swipe across her cheek to rid her skin of tears that continued to fall. She stepped back and swallowed thickly. He was right, after she'd seen such a reaction from him; she knew that truly awful things would happen if she stopped drinking the potion.

"I promise." She vowed.


	6. Truth Telling

**Thought I would post today because this story hit 100 reviews! Yay! Thank you all so much for your support, it means the world to me and I'm glad you're all enjoying the story. But now you've waited, wondered and theorise. Well, wait no longer, wonder no longer and theorise no longer because all the answers are coming out. [insert evil laugh here]**

**Don't forget to review!**

* * *

_The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool._

- Stephen King

* * *

The first new moon that Caroline came to the Kingdom of Souls, she and Klaus played chess calmly and without speaking. The chess board was ornate and made of marble, Caroline hadn't played for years but still remembered all the rules from when she'd played with her father and brothers. Caroline knew she probably didn't have the experience he had but she wasn't going to give in easily.

They had not fully recovered their intimacy from their argument, which was hard when they only saw each other once a month, now every two weeks. Klaus took her white knight and put it aside as she took another sip of her water that tasted of fruit, lounging back on the comfortable chaise he'd insisted she sat on.

Caroline nearly dropped her glass when she felt it, a kicking sensation. Stronger than any other movement than she'd ever felt in the mortal realm. "Oh!" She cried out before she could stop herself, putting the glass aside and feeling for the source of the sensation. The baby kicked once more and she grinned to herself, forgetting where she was for a split second.

She looked up to see Klaus was on his knees beside her, looking worriedly at the blonde and waiting for her to explain what her exclamation had been about. It was endearing to see a King, a powerful immortal being like Klaus on his knees to make sure she was okay and was far more than she could expect from her husband. Enzo made sure she had everything she needed, but he barely saw his wife.

"What's wrong? Is it the child? Did you…?" He trailed off but she knew what he was asking, he wanted to know if she'd taken the potion today. She smiled and nodded to assure him quickly, the fear of incurring his wrath churning in her stomach for a split second.

"Nothing is wrong, the child is kicking is all." She explained as the baby continued to kick. Caroline knew that the child was a boy, Klaus had promised her a male heir and he kept every promise to her so far. She would have a Prince, and yet, Caroline never referred to the baby as 'he' or her son. Klaus stared at her stomach in wonderment and Caroline chuckled, rubbing the bump where the child was kicking to soothe the child. "Do you want to feel it?' She asked curiously, wondering whether he would actually want to feel her child's kick.

He didn't nod, but he didn't shake his head. She reached over and took his hand from where it sat on the chaise and moved it to the spot in question. It took a few seconds for the kicking to begin once more but when they did, Klaus' eyes widened in recognition but his face quickly became blank as Caroline smiled shyly.

"Extraordinary, the wonders of human life." He told her before standing up and returning to his seat. Caroline smiled and nodded in agreement, the moment had passed. "I believe it's your turn, love."

Caroline smiled and reached over to take his bishop.

* * *

"You can't keep this going, Klaus." Marcel insisted the moment Caroline had returned to her home realm that night, having seen the entire exchange between the Queen and Klaus from the shadows where he lurked. The King in question took another sip of his wine as he sat in his study, always needing a glass after seeing Caroline. "You need to tell her, you had a close call with her missing that one dose but if she does it again, then you risk them both." He told his King.

Klaus shuddered at that visual. "What would you advise?" He asked, not actually interested. Marcel had been his most trusted advisor for three centuries now, having died in a war when he was in his late twenties and impressed the King with his shows of loyalty and fidelity. He'd offered him a place in his court, and Marcel quickly worked his way up the ranks to be Klaus' right hand man and one of the few who knew the entire story when it came to Queen Caroline.

"Tell her the truth or don't make her come here anymore, I'm sure Sophie can find some way of the potion not being needed but you're getting tangled in a web of lies. She's a mortal, this is her life that you're playing with." Marcel suggested desperately of the King he'd been serving for centuries now. Klaus finished off his drink and looked at the spirit with a glare. Marcel didn't back down. "She'll begin to ask questions." He added.

"And I will answer them." Klaus countered. "But Caroline will continue to come here and if anyone speaks a word to her, I will throw them in the deepest of the pits and put them through pain so intense that they'll forget their mother's face." He threatened, knowing his friend would carry this threat to Davina and Sophie and the witches who disagreed with this deceit of his. Klaus knew that they wouldn't have made the same decisions he did but Klaus had always been one to make tough decisions.

Marcel threw up his hands in surrender at Klaus' stubbornness and began towards the door. "If I hadn't known you for three centuries, I would say that you were falling in love with her." He added nonchalantly before disappearing out of the study and into the halls to continue to organise the day's affairs of the palace.

Klaus growled low in his throat at his advisor's words, reaching over to refill his goblet and muttering to himself about how impossible it was that he, the King of Souls, was falling in love with a mortal Queen, no matter how valuable she was to him and what she might gain for him without even realising it.

Klaus knew that he owed her the truth sooner or later, but right now he wanted to enjoy her company without those truths hanging over them, it had been tense enough when she'd missed a dose. Only the baby's kicking had smoothed over the rough edges of that particular argument.

He didn't know everything about Caroline but he did know the most important things. He knew that Caroline was a tough and determined woman, that she'd been through a lot and it had hardened her into a strong woman from the circumstances that had forced her from her home and family. She could not be easily pushed into a corner and told what to think, as Klaus was just beginning to discover.

* * *

"I'm beginning to worry about the potion's effect on the baby, Klaus." She admitted as they strolled in the gardens two weeks later. Caroline was wrapped in her velvet cloak and Klaus had provided some leather gloves to stop the chill from getting to the Queen's hands whilst he wore no sort of outerwear. Her words brought Klaus to a stop, not noticing that the Queen had stopped herself for a few paces.

The full moon shone in the sky as he stared ahead, swallowing thickly and filling with dread. He knew that Caroline would begin to be more aggressive with her questions but he'd wished for more time. Klaus turned to look at her in disbelief; she stood nervously, hands pressed against her stomach in tense worry as she breached this subject once more. "I don't even know what it's for and you're feeding it to me like it's the elixir of life. I need to know what it's doing to my baby." Caroline stammered as she spoke.

"I told you, it helps the baby's health." He replied tersely, hoping she would accept that and let them move on. Caroline shook her head and bit her lip like she had when he'd been angry with her.

"How?"

"It's magic, there doesn't have to be a how, otherwise it would be called science. It works, and that's all you need to know." Klaus reminded her, taking a step forward as they stood in a garden of flowers. The fireflies had long disappeared into the night to bother someone else. Caroline took a step forward to counter his move and swallowed thickly, gathering her courage.

She'd promised to keep taking the potion and she had done every night, not eager to relive the pain she'd gone through. Caroline knew she'd escaped by the skin of her teeth the first time but part of her knew that this wasn't natural and it wasn't just for the health of her baby that he was making her take this potion. There must have been another reason, and her grandmother had told her that he was known for being tricky.

"No, I can't do this anymore, you're hiding something from me and I can't play along. I won't gamble with my child's life again," she told him firmly and for the first time, Klaus has felt less powerful than someone. Caroline spoke with the Queenly authority that she'd been born with, raw and real but had been buried under years of making other people happy. He held strong.

"I'm not asking you to gamble if you follow my instructions." He told her.

"I felt what happened on the day that I didn't take the potion; it was agony. I was terrified I was going to lose my baby." Klaus wanted to remind her that it was because she disobeyed that she had felt any pain and that had she simply done as he asked, he would never of had to be angry and she would have never felt any pain but instead stayed quiet. "That's gambling in my eyes. That's not normal, there's something wrong." She told him.

"There's nothing wrong with this child." He assured her.

"It's dependent on the potion, it could barely survive one day without it, that's what is wrong here." Caroline snapped back angrily. "I need to know why you're giving me this potion to protect my child when the lack of one dose could kill it. I have done everything you asked and told you secrets I've never told anyone, I need you to be honest with me about what you're doing to my son!" She practically shouted into his face, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

Klaus scoffed and shook his head, beginning to walk away and pace. He was unsure of what to do and say, part of him knew that she would only be satisfied with the truth but he also knew that she wouldn't believe him at first and insist he was lying again. "I'm giving you what you have waited eight years for and on top of that, I'm insuring the child's health and you throw it back in my face like I am some serpent in the garden." He hissed.

"I asked you for a child, I can care for it myself. And you still haven't answered my question about what this potion does to my child." She pointed out, her vigilance the bane of Klaus' life. He'd made many a bargain with many a mortal in his life but none had been so attentive to detail as she had. Klaus pinched the bridge of his nose as Caroline replied harshly, their squabble attracting the attention of some spirits who were gardening quietly a hundred yards away. "What benefit does this child bring you? Why do you care so much?" She shouted at him.

"Because the child is _mine._" Klaus shouted back before he could stop himself, turning to face her.

Caroline's eyes narrowed and then her face went white, staring at him in disbelief. "It was always mine. You were pregnant when you left this realm the first time we met, and since then, you've been pregnant with my child." He told her.

Caroline stopped dead for a second but recovered quickly. "You're lying! You told me that it's impossible to conceive in this realm. You told me you would allow me to bear the King's…. heir." Her words became slower and slower as she began to piece together her greatest mistake when she'd told him her darkest desire.

She pressed her lips together when she remembered the night she'd struck this deal with Klaus. He'd asked her what she desired and she'd asked to bear the King's heir; she'd never specified which King. She'd never said she wanted to bear her husband's child. Caroline swallowed thickly, looking at her stomach with shock and back to Klaus, remembering what he'd said about conception in this land and knowing that he had to be lying to play with her emotions or show her the consequences of asking questions. "What? No! You told me that…" She shouted at him, trailing off in disbelief.

"I told you natural conception was not possible in this realm, but magic assisted conception is not exactly natural, you'd agree?" He told her calmly, deciding to lay all his cards on the table and be honest with her. She pressed her hands together like she was praying for it not to be true and pressed them to her lips, cursing herself for being so stupid. "Your wine was laced with a herb used for enhancing fertility, negating the term 'natural conception'. You've been pregnant with my child for five full moons now."

As he spoke, Caroline fell onto a nearby stone bench as if she might faint from the shock. She clutched at the marble and her breathing became laboured, heavy and erratic as she tried to find words. "That's how you're benefiting me." He added, wanting to sit next to her but feeling that she wouldn't be open to him being anywhere near her.

"And the elixir?" She asked in a gasp, unable to form more than a few words as tears raced down her cheeks. Klaus couldn't stand to watch her cry but he knew she wouldn't want him touching her, maybe ever again.

"My siblings cursed me when they cast me into this realm so I could not live in the sunlight as an insurance should I ever escape. When I was put here, I was not the man I am now. I was the definition of darkness and hatred and nothing was stopping me." Caroline scoffed when he'd insisted he'd changed because evidence suggested otherwise at the moment.

He ignored her and continued, licking his lips to wet them where they'd gone bone dry in the last few minutes. "This curse was passed onto my child, if you had not been drinking the potion, the curse would be evoked and the child would die in the womb when the sun was at its highest." He explained dully, trying to tell her the entire truth so she could process it all.

She pressed her lips in a line as they trembled. Caroline now understood why she'd felt pain at the noon, the time when the sun was at it's highest. Her mind raced as she tried to piece together every little detail from the past five months that hadn't made sense and now couldn't be clearer. Klaus' anger at her not taking one dose now turned from concern for his customer to anger that she was risking his heir and child. "So you were going to force me to feed the child this potion every night?" She asked with a voice like poison.

Klaus laughed bitterly. "This child was _never_ going to live in the mortal realm."

Caroline stood up and for a woman much shorter than him; she seemed to tower over him angrily. "_You are a liar_! You _manipulated_ me into bearing your child, I can't believe that I…" She trailed off, shaking her head and taking a deep breath. "You're never going to see me again, I'm leaving and I'm never returning. This deal is null and void. I want _nothing_ to do with you!" She warned him before beginning off into the castle to prepare herself to return to the mortal realm.

"I'm afraid that's not possible." He called after her. She paused and turned around, rounding on him like a wild beast and asking him exactly what he meant by that.

"The child cannot live in the mortal realm without the elixir and it's made with my blood among other ingredients. I may have not told you the truth, but I have never lied to you. I gave you your wish, in a year you shall still have a Prince and I protected our child with every resource that I have. And if you're not going to honour our deal, then you'll be staying here in this realm where I can protect you." She looked shocked by this turn of events.

"The only person I need protecting from is you." She hissed. "I can't just disappear from my kingdom, I'm the Queen! I have to be there for them. You can't just keep me here!"

"I think that I can." He told her darkly, the Queen bristled and exhaled angrily. "I'm leaving before you overexcite yourself and cause any harm to the child." Klaus decided that she needed some time to calm down, to which she shook her head in disbelief. He waved forward a disapproving looking Davina who had heard the entire debacle. She boldly glared at the King before turning to Caroline. Klaus didn't bother to chastise Davina and continued to speak to a disbelieving Caroline who seemed to be wondering how quickly her life had been turned upside down.

"Davina will see you to your rooms, and I'll come see you in a little while. I'll explain everything, love, I promise." He told her before turning and walking down where they'd been coming from.

The moment he was out of earshot, Caroline let out a sob and wiped her eyes, looking down at her bump with new eyes. She still loved her child, she would never stop loving her child. But she couldn't look at Klaus the same way now. All this time he'd known that she was carrying his child and not told her. He'd let her believe that she would be able to have her son and live happily in her own land when he'd planned to keep them both down here since the very beginning.

She knew she shouldn't be surprised that the immortal being cast into a realm of darkness ended up being a manipulative liar but she couldn't believe she'd been so stupid to care and think that he wasn't as they'd painted him. After a few moments of composing herself, Caroline turned to the younger brunette, smiling best she could and allowing the witch to lead her back towards the palace to her rooms.

Caroline couldn't resist one last look at the King as she began to climb the steps into the palace. He was stood next to the pond, looking pensive and serious. She looked away quickly before he felt her gaze, disappearing into the hallways of the palace.


	7. Screaming and Shouting

**So, the plot twist was last week and now comes the fall out. Thank you guys for all your awesome reviews and keep them coming. I don't have much to say this week which is new but I hope you enjoy the story all the same. Hit me with your theories for the next chapter!**

* * *

_It's the ones you love the most who can lift you in an  
__instant, and destroy you without trying_

― Dorothy Koomson, Goodnight, Beautiful

* * *

Klaus watched as Caroline ascended into the palace and cleared his throat. "I know that you're lurking." He called into the air, sensing the presence of another and turning to see the newcomer. Sure enough, Marcel was standing behind the King with a sombre expression. He looked like he didn't want to speak first, knowing Klaus would be in a foul mood. "I'm assuming you heard that."

"I think they heard that in the pits." Marcel commented, glancing towards the boundaries of the palace.

Beyond the palace walls, the spirits of the dead lived in harmony and peace as they had in life or how they wished they could live. They could occasionally enter the mortal realm through a mirror in the palace as spirits or ghosts, but they could never stay long as they did not belong in the mortal world. On certain days like blue moons and Halloween, the restrictions on the spirits were looser but they would always have to return to Klaus' realm.

Those who were decidedly too evil to return to the mortal world were thrown into a pit of eternal punishment where those trapped would have their deepest fears exploited whilst they suffered through eternal pain. Klaus personally visited sometimes when he was feeling vindictive but it hadn't been like that for some time.

Klaus pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking of every possible detail that was needed to facilitate Caroline's staying in the palace. She already had rooms allocated, rooms that Klaus had been making more to her tastes over the past couple of months but he hadn't expected that she would be staying so early. He started with the most dire and important point. "Make sure she doesn't find the hall of mirrors, she could leave if she finds out that it's a portal." He told his advisor.

Marcel nodded. "I'll seal off the room."

"To everybody." Klaus emphasised. "Davina can be available for her needs for now, and make sure that she has everything that she wants and needs." He threatened lowly; making sure Marcel knew what would happen if Caroline wasn't treated like the Queen she was. Klaus sighed and looked over at the steps Caroline had disappeared up a few minutes ago.

"Tell her the whole truth and give her a reason to trust you again, just one olive branch; she'll come around when she knows the whole story." Marcel assured his King without being prompted, knowing Klaus well enough to know when he needed something said and when silence was the key. Klaus sighed and turned to his friend with a slightly more hopeful expression but overshadowed with guilt.

"I need to speak with Sophie."

* * *

In the palace in her own realm, Caroline had had her three faithful maids who attended on her daily and were duty bound to her service. Before that in her homeland, Caroline had had a governess whose job was to make sure that she trained and perfected to be Queen, as well as two maids.

In the Kingdom of Souls, Caroline had none of this. She felt like a fish out of water with only a young witch called Davina to lead her to her rooms. Whilst the chamber was familiar and soothing, she still felt helpless as Davina helped the pregnant Queen unlace her dress and get into a nightgown that had been found for her and brought to her rooms.

Klaus had given her these rooms when she'd started coming every full moon so she had somewhere to fall asleep so she could return to the mortal realm. Slowly they had morphed to become more homely and attuned to her tastes. The colours changed and the décor became more and more warm and welcoming to the Queen.

At first, Caroline had found it a lovely gesture and it had made her smile to see the sheets were changed for her favourite colour and the flowers became the ones that she'd pointed out as her favourites in the garden. Now she knew that he'd just been preparing for the time when he would tell her she couldn't go home, it all seemed like hollow gestures to try and gain her favour.

Caroline simply fell onto the bed and started to cry loudly once she was changed, tears had been slipping out of her eyes since she'd turned her back on the King and once she was alone, she didn't hold anything back. She hadn't given any consideration to the brunette who was in the room with her; she was more than used to crying in front of her maids.

Davina stood awkwardly for a second, not sure what to do with the crying and emotional Queen she'd been charged with. Tears were not a big part of the underworld if you weren't cast into the pit, especially in the King's court. She finally decided to try and comfort the blonde, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting her hand on the Queen's shoulder.

Caroline didn't react to her attempts to console her and continued to cry loudly and without any shame, lying on her side and curled in on herself. The weight of all this information was crushing her, heavy on her chest as he sobbed; she was sure that her cries could be heard rooms away. Eventually, the younger of the two girls spoke in an unsure voice, trying her best. "His Majesty won't hurt you." She promised the blonde softly as Caroline continued to sob.

"I'm never going to see my mother again." Caroline replied, ignoring the reassurance that Klaus wouldn't harm her. Somehow, she knew that Klaus wouldn't hurt her physically and wouldn't mean to hurt her emotionally even though he'd done just that by lying to her. Caroline knew that he'd had said that he wanted to protect her by keeping her here, but that mattered little to the Queen. Davina looked at the blonde with a confused expression.

"My husband promised me that I could go see her once I gave birth to an heir but travel would be too dangerous before then." She explained, remembering when she'd approached her husband and asked to return to her homeland to visit her mother. He'd been sympathetic but explained that if Caroline discovered she was pregnant during the journey, she would put the child and her at risk and it would be best to wait until she had secured an heir.

The arrangement had started in their first year and stretched over the eight years, each year making her more and more desperate. Caroline sobbed and pressed her face into the pillow, muffling her words as she spoke again. "And now I will never see her or my family again." Davina sighed heavily and rubbed the blonde's shoulder reassuringly.

"Sometimes when people make promises, they have no intention to keep them, Your Majesty." She replied cryptically. Caroline wasn't sure whom the younger girl was referring to: her husband or Klaus but she really didn't want to find out. Either way, Caroline would be the one losing out. The blonde pressed her face further into the soft pillows and continued to sob as the witch tried to console her, rubbing her back and arm until the Queen fell asleep.

Her slumber was dreamless, black. Recently, her dreams had been full of colour, brilliance, and happiness. Since she'd first come to this realm, Caroline had dreamt of the gardens and the moon and him but tonight her dreams were dark and visionless.

When she woke, it was to the sound of Davina creeping around the room as she brought in some breakfast so not to disturb her charge. Caroline opened her eyes as the baby kicked inside her stomach, the pair of them desperate for something to eat. She tried to remember the last time she'd eaten and remembered it was the last dinner she'd had in the mortal realm.

The curtains were pulled aside to reveal the moon still high in the sky; Caroline stared at the waning moon in wonder and wondered what it would be like to live in a world without the sun for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. She may never feel a summer breeze or the sun on her face as she sat with her maids in the gardens. The only source of light she would ever see again would be the moon that shone brightly now; she would live in a world of darkness.

Unable to stomach that dark thought and desperate to try and put it out of her mind, she finally decided to strike up a conversation with the elven like girl who was walking around the room to do odd jobs. "How old are you?" She asked the brunette who looked shocked that the Queen had spoken, whirling around from where she'd poking the fire to keep the Queen warm. She recovered and began to speak.

"I was 16 when I died and came here." Davina told the Queen obediently.

"When did you die? I mean, what year was it in the mortal realm?" Caroline replied as she quirked her brow and readjusted her blankets. The fire was providing a dull warmth that was suffocating when combined with the thick blanket Klaus had covered her with once when she complained of the cold.

"Hundreds of years ago now, I don't remember the exact year. I was killed for being a witch; there was a plague in my village, people blamed it on the witches and found me guilty a few weeks later. They sentenced me to death and nobody defended me, not even my own parents." Davina explained sadly, pausing to think for a few moments. Caroline then asked how she'd come to work for Klaus.

"The King sat in on my case, it's hard to decide where to place a young person such as myself because we've barely lived long enough to commit any great sins or do anything real with our lives. He realised that I had the ability to predict the future and inducted me into the court." Caroline looked curious when the girl told her that she was a seer.

The Queen had once been to someone who claimed to be a seer, an old woman famed for predicting the future. Caroline had expected to have to pick a card or give the woman her palm but it hadn't gone like that. The woman had simply stared into the blonde's eyes as if she was reading her soul and told her that she would not tell the Queen her future, because the Queen wouldn't like what she saw. Caroline could see what she meant now.

Davina's voice snapped Caroline out of her memories. "I see the people who are going to come to him for favours and he uses the information to decide whether he would help them when they did eventually come. Sophie also taught me about how to make brews and potions, cast spells and such, use my abilities to serve." Davina explained as she went to pour some tea into a china tea set on the table.

Caroline pushed herself up slowly and rubbed her bump lovingly as she did. The baby kicked back, squirming happily at the smell of breakfast and tea. Davina brought the tea over Caroline and quickly assured her that there was nothing in it other than honey and lemon to soothe the soul and stomach. "And you predicted me coming to him?" Caroline asked almost bitterly as she took a sip.

Davina went silent for a few seconds and pressed her lips together, going about her business and turning from the Queen. "I'm not at liberty to speak about this any further. The King asked me not to rile you up when you're in this condition and that he would explain everything to you when you permitted him to see you." She told the Queen mechanically, as if she'd rehearsed these lines. Caroline popped her eyebrows in surprise that Klaus was going to wait for her to want to see him. "I'm supposed to ask when you wish to him to come see you."

"Not today." Caroline replied.

* * *

Every day for an entire week, Davina asked Caroline when she wanted Klaus to come to her and every day she replied the same. Not today. She was still angry and needed time to work things out in her own head before Klaus told her the whole story. If she'd only heard a fraction of the truth and reacted the way she did, then she wasn't ready for the entirety of the truth.

Caroline barely left her rooms, which were made as comfortable as possible, and anything she asked for was brought to her. Davina brought her some new clothes when her gown began almost unbearable to wear and helped her fill a bath as well as get into it, a challenge for the woman now she was pregnant. She spent almost an hour in the warm water that seemed to never cool, lying back and thinking before Davina came to ask if she was okay and snapped her out of her reverie.

When she did leave the rooms, Klaus was nowhere to be seen. Davina commented that he was sitting in on the court almost every day to distract himself but Caroline didn't offer any opinion when she learnt this. She almost wanted to go see the court herself but was afraid to ask; curious about what every mortal faced when they left the mortal realm for the last time.

She walked around the gardens with Davina tailing her to make sure she didn't get lost or wander out of the palace boundaries and into the cities of the dead. Caroline was told that the dead would become confused that a mortal was among them and demand answers so it was best for her presence to be a rumour until further notice.

She investigated the giant library and the many, many rooms of the palace that she seemed doomed to live in the rest of her life in there and the afterlife that would succeed it. Davina told her the purpose and the histories of each room and artefacts that Caroline found, willing and happy to serve the mortal Queen. The pair found themselves quickly comfortable in each other's company.

Caroline didn't see Klaus again until she passed the archway that led into the Looking Glass room to see that it was in use, the reflection replaced by a view into the mortal realm but not as clear as when Klaus had showed her. In fact, it was just a blurry image with no focus to it, like an artist's easel. Blotches of colours merged and swam together on the surface of the glass like they wanted to form a picture but there was something that stopped them.

Caroline put one hand on the cold wall as she watched the image continue to morph in front of her arm, not sure if there was anyone in the room. She was just about to call out and see if the room was empty when a hand replacing a wine glass on the table next to the high backed chair answered the question, indicating that Klaus was sat there in his throne.

She wondered what he was doing here and with such a unique image to watch but also knew that he'd probably heard her footsteps from down the hall and knew that she had paused in the doorway. Caroline dared to take another few steps into the room and closer to the throne he was relaxed into. The image on The Looking Glass was never clear but consisted of bright, shining colours; she couldn't take her eyes off it for more than a few seconds.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Klaus finally spoke, but his voice was not harsh or commanding. It was softer and almost pleading with her.

"What are you looking at?" She asked him, not responding to his question as she tried to decipher what he was trying to find in the mirror. Caroline moved until she was standing next to the throne, still squinting at the Looking Glass like it was a puzzle and she was looking at it all wrong. Maybe Klaus saw something completely different to her and it made perfect sense to him. Klaus cast a look at her when she wasn't looking and took another sip of his wine.

"The Looking Glass can only see into the mortal realm clearly, but that doesn't mean that I won't try and see into others." He explained with a heavy sigh. Caroline furrowed her brow and looked over at him; he was staring intently into the mix of colours that must have meant something to him.

She realised now how much she missed his presence in the last week, how important he made her feel when he looked at her with those eyes. Caroline almost wanted to act like nothing had happened and return to their intimacy and the life they'd had before he'd revealed the truth but a little voice reminded her what he'd done and that she wasn't ready to forgive him.

He waved the image away with one hand and it morphed back into their reflection, the blonde stared back at herself for a second. She'd barely looked at herself for the last week and was shocked by how different she looked. She was wearing a rose coloured gown that fitted her almost perfectly; her stomach was a little rounder and prominent under the fabric. She had circles under her eyes from the lack of sleep she'd been getting and her skin seemed a little closer to the colour of the moon opposite the window now.

When Klaus didn't speak again, Caroline swallowed thickly and began out of the room, sensing that he wanted to be alone. "Are you ever going to let me explain?" He asked, still sat in the ornate throne that had sat there since before Caroline had been born. Caroline lingered in the doorway and turned to look back, biting her lip and looking down at her stomach.

"Tonight." She promised him before beginning out of the room and into the halls.


	8. Coming to Light

**Another week, another chapter! This one is a little shorter but brings us into the final resolving plot that I think a lot of people are going to be like 'what? no! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?' about but trust me I know what I'm doing...I think. Yeah, let's go with that. **

**Anyways, that's all I have to say this week except thank you for all the support! **

**Don't forget to leave a review! **

* * *

_"Some truths did not bear saying, and some lies were necessary." _

- George R.R. Martin: Game of Thrones

* * *

When that night did come, or what could be considered night in a world where the sun did not shine, Caroline sat by the fire and stared into the flames as Klaus opened the door to her chambers. She did not look at him instantly but she knew when he was close. "Do you know what they think has happened to me in my world?" She asked him calmly, the fire crackling as she spoke. He cleared his throat and took a seat next to her, beginning to stare into the flames himself.

"They discovered that you weren't in your rooms when the sun rose, searched the palace and found the fresh blood on the oak tree. They are continuing to look into it, but I think that at this point they are looking for a body or they have assumed that you've run away." He explained, having kept a close eye on the mortal realm as they searched for the Queen. Caroline didn't react to what he said so he continued. "I'm sure that your husband will be devastated."

She cast him a glare. At first, her husband would probably be worried for his wife, they may have never been in love but they were something akin to uneasy friends and they certainly didn't hate each other even with all the conflicts and unspoken words between them. He gave her what she needed and made sure she was cared for and went about his business.

However, as the days went on, he would begin to realise that he'd be free of Caroline if she disappeared and he wouldn't have to shoulder any blame. People loyal to Caroline may suspect foul play at first but why would have her killed or cover up her kidnapping if she was pregnant with his child? Rumours would turn to whispers and then disappear with all memories of her. Enzo could marry his mistress Maggie and make their bastard daughter a Princess or marry another Princess or Duchess and still have her father's favour and treaty intact.

"You've been watching long enough to know that's not true. He'll be over the moon if I'm pronounced dead. He has a mistress he loves and a bastard child who he adores." She finally spoke.

"I've been watching a long time, you're right." He told her with a soft voice, causing the Queen to look over at him with a curious side eye. She decided not to respond and wait for him to begin to tell her the truth and hope that she could handle it better than she had reacted the first time. Caroline pressed her lips together and continued to stare into the fire, determined not to get upset or angry with whatever he said and cause any harm to the child. She after all loved her child no matter what.

"It was six months before our first meeting when Davina predicted that you would come to me. Like all times before this, I began to look into your world and decide whether I would help you, princesses and Queens do not come often so I assume that you would ask for something petty and inconsequential." He began with Caroline looking over at him as he spoke and watching the way he spoke in such a calming fashion. "I saw how sad and alone you were, and I saw that you and I were a alike. Prisoners in pretty palaces, cursed by our families." He told her.

Caroline considered this comparison for a second, a completely new perspective on the matter that she hadn't contemplated. If Klaus looked at her and saw himself in what he saw, that would explain why she was so drawn to him and evidently him to her, but it didn't explain his behaviour and actions. Or excuse them. "It was then that I saw something that changed my entire perspective on your case and led me to make the choices I made." He continued, finally looking Caroline in the eyes so that she might see the truth that shone in them.

"Your husband and his advisors were planning to poison you, and have been for a while now. The poison would be so subtle and you would feel no pain, they simply needed you out of the way so they could secure an heir." Klaus explained sorrowfully, like it hurt for him to tell her this. "Even if you were to get pregnant, they were planning to kill you and say you died in childbirth so that your child might be legitimate but after his bastard child once they were legitimised."

Caroline didn't know what to say. She knew what he was saying was the truth, it sounded like the threats that had been implied and alluded to for the past eight years had finally been worded: Get pregnant or die trying. "Why didn't you just let him kill me then?" She asked. Caroline had meant nothing to him until she waltzed into his life and he impregnated her.

"Because I couldn't bear the idea of you being another spirit in my realm, dying without having lived." He mused as if he wasn't that sure of the answer himself. Caroline smoothed a hand over her stomach as the baby kicked. "I always planned to try and convince you to hide yourself in this realm but knew that without an arrangement or an incentive, you wouldn't visit me again after I denied you. I had to give you a reason to return."

Caroline's heart swelled at the idea that he'd been planning to bring her here all the time to protect her, though still slightly bitter at his deception.

"I thought if I were to tell you about your husband's plot, you would still return to the mortal world for the sake of your child and hope for the best but if you were to discover that you were carrying my child rather than your husband's, that you might consent to stay here where your husband could not reach you, and I could protect you both." He continued.

Caroline sighed deeply. "This is insane."

"Truth usually is, that's why people lie." He replied like an old philosopher. Well, he probably had time to think up wise old things to say when he was eternally imprisoned in darkness, Caroline thought to herself and she breathed a smile and ducked her head as the pair of them stared at the flames once more as they pondered the truths that were now on full display for them both to examine.

"What benefit could a child bring you? You must not have need of an heir, yet you sought to create one so that I might stay here with you." Caroline posed the question quietly, her head stuck on that one question that stumped her. Why would Klaus need or want a child? She thought to herself as she continued to hold her stomach.

Klaus looked unsure of how to answer this question, looking away from her and into his lap for a few seconds. She waited patiently, prepared to wait until he was ready to tell her why she was carrying his heir at this moment in time. "When I cast from my home realm, my siblings cursed me so I could never enter it again without their permission. They promised that one day I would be granted permission, but that day has not come." He explained.

Caroline's eyes widened slightly, suddenly it clicked inside her head. "You were trying to look into your realm through the Looking Glass today, weren't you?" She guessed.

"I was. The Looking Glass has never been able to see the land I was born in, and my curse would prevent me from travelling there even if I could escape this realm. And I have tried many times." He explained. "Only immortals can enter that realm, and our child would be immortal because he was conceived in this realm but not cursed like me. He would be able to enter it."

"You wanted your son to go to your realm…?" She asked, looking down at her stomach once more and thinking about the extraordinary life she was carrying there; an immortal child who could not walk in the mortal world but could enter a realm where only Gods ruled and see the family that Klaus could not. But then a thought occurred to her. "You wanted him to get revenge on your family?" She asked him in a horrified voice, imagining her child being raised as a soldier, as a pawn.

Klaus looked up sharply. "I would not send my child to a slaughter like that. I wanted him to go and offer an olive branch, give me some way of reaching my family." He explained.

"You must miss them." Caroline commented. Klaus didn't respond.

"Davina told me about your mother." He decided to say instead, causing Caroline to swallow thickly and avoid his gaze. She didn't want to think about her mother right now, she couldn't imagine what her mother would think of her if she saw her now, or when she found out that her daughter was missing whilst with child. She shuddered at the thought of her parents and her brothers receiving the news. "I didn't know, I'm sorry." He apologised profusely.

"I suppose that I wouldn't have seen her anyway if my husband was planning to kill me once I gave birth." She reasoned, wiping her eyes of a tear that had yet to drip down her cheek. Caroline knew that Klaus had seen her tears and the look on his face broke her heart, he looked helpless like he wanted to console her but didn't know how to do that, which was probably a throwback of being alone for hundreds of years.

"I can send you back." He offered after a few seconds.

"What?" She spluttered, straightening up.

"I can send you back to your home, you could see your mother once more and return when the new moon comes." He propositioned, standing up and approaching her as she remained sat in her cushioned chair, unsure of what to think of this bargain he was proposing.

"How do you know that I will return when the new moon comes?" She asked. Caroline could return to the mortal realm and never return to the Kingdom of Souls. Her son would die in her womb but she would be free forever, or at least until she died. She could run away and live the life she wanted. Caroline pressed one hand to her stomach, wondering if she would make such a sacrifice for her freedom and pressing her lips into a line. Klaus looked from her eyes to her stomach protectively, knowing her exact trail of thought.

"If I send you back, you must return of your own accord." Klaus told her, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a smaller bottle than the ones he'd been giving her for the last few months. "This dose will lift the curse off the child and protect you from any attempts to murder you such as poisoning, but you will never be able to return to this realm. You must stay with me because you want to, not because I forced you to. The choice must be yours." He assured her before putting the bottle on the end table next to Caroline's chair, like she was the ruler and he was offering gifts to appease her.

She looked between the King and the bottle, picking it carefully up off the table and swallowing thickly as she mulled. She stood and examined the liquid in the firelight before looking back to Klaus with suspicion. "What's the price?"

"There is no price. I want you to be happy." He told her. "If you believe that you can be happy with me, then I will spend eternity making that wish come true. If you wish to remain in the mortal world, then I will grant that wish too and never again will you see me."

She took in a deep breath. "Can I think about it?"

"Take all the time that you need." He assured her, taking her hand from her side and pressing a kiss to the back of her palm softly. She flushed bright at his tender gesture and he began to pass her as she stood with the bottle in her hand by her side. She waited for the sound of a door opening and shutting but it never came, Caroline furrowed her brow and turned to see the King was standing there and facing her.

"Aren't you leaving?" She asked.

"In a moment." Klaus spoke darkly, looking at her with a look she'd seen before. He stared at her a few seconds before crossing the room once more. Before she could stop him, Klaus was cupping her jaw line and pressing his lips to hers. She gasped a little in shock but quickly moulded to the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck to keep him close. The kiss was short and Klaus brought his lips away to speak. "Just so you know, if you did decide to stay, then I would never let you be unhappy, I would give you anything you wanted."

Caroline could only nod in agreement, she knew that he would make good on his promise and bit her lip. "I know." She responded.

"Well then, good night." He muttered once before parting and beginning towards the door, leaving the Queen to fall back into her seat and try and clear her head.

* * *

"I've made my decision." Caroline announced as she came into the throne room a day later. It wasn't the first time she'd been in there but she and Klaus avoided this place during their time together. It was a long narrow room but with enough room to hold a ball for 300 people, all tall windows that spilled in the moonlight and candles that seemed to never finish burning. At the end of the room was an elevated platform and on top of it sat the throne of the Lord of the Dead. There was only one throne, no Queen to sit by Klaus' side. Klaus was sat back in it relaxed like he was in deep thought.

Davina had told her where the King was and she'd seen herself in. She was wearing a deep purple gown that Davina had brought her earlier; desperate to change out of the pink satin gown she'd been wearing for days now. She'd had a bath poured for her by some maids assigned to her care by Klaus, a sign that he was hoping she would be here on a more permanent basis, and been able to wash her hair and brush it out properly, which was now loose in curls around her face where it had dried naturally and she hadn't had to put it up for court life.

He perked up when he heard her voice and stood up, beginning down the steps of the platform to meet her halfway. Caroline's heart ached at his hopeful expression as he asked for her to go on. "I want to see my family, and I'll take three days worth of the elixir and the dose." She bargained with him. "If I want to stay then, I'll drink the dose after the three days and if I don't, I'll return using the oak tree in my mother's garden on the third night." Caroline explained.

"So you haven't made a decision, you're very much on the fence." He determined in a steely tone that implied he was displeased by her indecision. Caroline hardened herself; she was not going to take this now. Not from him. He was the Lord of the dead, not her Lord.

"I've made the decision that whatever I decide to do, I need to see my family one last time." She told him. Caroline hadn't seen any of her family in a year now and she missed them terribly but she knew that a year was a blink of an eye to Klaus. "You must understand that, if someone told you that you could spend a day in your realm, wouldn't you do it no matter the cost?" Caroline begged him softly, going closer until they were nearly chest-to-chest. She put her hands on his chest and looked him in the eyes, her softening eyes against his cold ones.

He looked down at her with a guarded expression but sighed, nodding and moving a hand up to stroke her curls. She sighed and leaned into his hands. "I would do it in a heartbeat." He told her. "But I don't like that you're going somewhere I cannot follow you, especially when you're taking something so precious." Klaus reminded her.

Caroline felt a stab of guilt when she was reminded that she would be taking Klaus' son from him if she decided to stay in the mortal realm. She would probably be returned to Enzo after her family realized that she hadn't travelled there from her land, thinking that she had run away. She knew that if she had a son, Enzo would less inclined to kill her then if she had a daughter as he already had a bastard daughter by his mistress, plus she was loved. "I know, but you have the Looking Glass. I don't." She reminded him.

He chuckled. "A dull substitute to the real thing." He assured her gently before kissing her forehead as she smiled at the compliment. Klaus stepped back from her like her touch hurt him but kept their fingertips entwined for the briefest of seconds.

"I'll make the arrangements and you'll leave tonight." He told her in a colder tone. She nodded and curtsied once before beginning out of the throne room, taking a deep breath as she did.


	9. Reuniting

**I'm taking a break from writing the final chapter of this story to post this one. I've already posted a teaser on Tumblr and pointed out that the ending has already been foreshadowed...three different times and so far nobody has noticed so hopefully it'll stay that way. But I would be interested to hear your theories? What do you think is going to happen? Let me know in the reviews!**

**The last two chapters will be called 'Hearts Breaking' and 'The Bells' Tolling', if that helps ;)**

**Anyways, someone new is popping up in this chapter! **

* * *

_In the End, we will remember_  
_not the words of our enemies, _  
_but the silence of our friends._

_-_ Martin Luther King

* * *

Klaus wrapped the velvet cloak he'd once given Caroline around her shoulders that evening, as they quietly got ready to say their goodbyes so she could return to the mortal realm. He'd collected her from her room and brought her to a place he called the 'hall of mirrors'; there a multitude of mirrors of different shapes and sizes on the walls, in many different frames but the one that caught her eyes was a floor length mirror at the end of the long, thin room.

The floor length mirror was covered in a purple tapestry like curtain normally but Klaus had pulled it back to reveal the glass not unlike every mirror in the world. He'd experimentally pressed his fingers to the surface, which simply melted away and his flesh disappeared through the mirror. She would be using this mirror to return to the mortal realm. This was the mirror that his subjects used to return to the land of the living as ghosts and spirits.

In a bag he'd given her was the elixir to protect their child from the curse, which she would take daily as she had before, and the potion that would lift the curse at the expense of her never returning to his realm during her mortal life. She readjusted the satchel on her shoulder and swallowed thickly, not sure what to say. Klaus spoke first. "You'll come out at an oak tree nearest to the castle."

"The one in the garden." She filled in the blank. He smiled and nodded. "Why an oak tree?" The question had been burning on her tongue since her grandmother had told the story.

"Oak trees live for hundred of years and they're common enough that people who want to seek me out won't have far to look but not so common that it becomes easy." He explained, fingering the plait she'd done her hair in. She smiled at the answer and watched his fingers as they traced the weaving pattern of her hair.

"I don't know how to say goodbye." She admitted.

"Then don't." He replied simply, leaning over to take her lips as he did. Caroline's hands went to his chest and he brought them to rest on his heart with one hand over hers and cupped her jaw with the other. She melted into the kiss for a few seconds and closed her eyes to stop the tears leaking out.

* * *

After a head rush from traveling through realms whilst conscious and a mad dash to get to the palace gates before anyone noticed her in the gardens, Caroline was brought into the palace before the cold could get the better of her. She was astonished that anyone recognized her after eight years away, but the guards rushed to her aid without even a second to decide who she was and why she was there. She was a princess of this kingdom, she didn't answer questions.

The cloak kept her warm for the most part but her feet were freezing as she waited in one of the parlors for someone to fetch her family. A maid had brought tea and some biscuits that Caroline had favoured in her youth, which she nibbled at absentmindedly. She wondered who would arrive first as she warmed her hands at the fire.

The door shot open, and there was Stefan and Damon. They looked disbelieving of who was in front of them, as if they were seeing a ghost instead of their baby sister. The baby sister they'd played with, comforted, and protected from young men who came to court with eyes for their sister. Caroline didn't take a moment to let them adjust; she simply stood up and ran to them. "Stefan! Damon!" She squealed as she wrapped an arm around their necks, their heads knocking together accidentally as she brought them close.

Stefan was first to thaw out and rubbed his sister's back, tucking his head into her neck. Damon began to chuckle and kiss her temple. "I'll be damned, it is you, Caroline. I thought that the guards were playing a joke on us or something." Her oldest brother told her as he pulled away to get a good look at his sister. Stefan took the opportunity to wrap both arms around the baby of the family and continued to say nothing. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?" He asked quizzically.

Caroline thought on her feet. "There was a navy mission down to the edge of the river. I came along and one of the officers escorted me here. He'll be back in three days." Damon nodded and smiled, prying her away from Stefan's arms and spinning her around to continue his examination.

"You've certainly rounded out since the last time we saw you. You always were too skinny for your own good." He teased, noting her almost six-month baby belly that was peeking out from underneath her gown. She chucked and rubbed one hand over her stomach.

"You shouldn't travel in this condition." Stefan finally spoke up and Caroline looked over, swallowing thickly and feeling guilty that he was worried about the health problems that came from traveling whilst pregnant when none would arise. After a few seconds, his serious look became a shy smile. "But I'm glad you did." He admitted, pulling her back into a hug. She giggled and let her brother hold her.

"I missed you both so much." She admitted.

"We missed you too, Care." Damon assured her, kissing her forehead and tucking some loose hair behind her ear. She pressed her cheek into Stefan's shoulder and tried not to cry, tears spilling up in her eyes. Damon noticed and wiped his thumb along the edge of his sister's eyes to mop up any tears threatening to escape as he had when they were both young. "Hey, no tears." He insisted.

Caroline tried to keep to her brother's command but when the door opened once more a few minutes later, she broke. Stefan had dragged his freezing sister to fireplace and the three of them had began to talk about what life had been like for each of them, Caroline graciously omitting the parts where she was in another realm, when the door opened and revealed her mother and father. She stood by reflex, as one should when the King and Queen entered even if they were your parents and the first tear fell down her cheek when she saw the joy on her mother's face.

"Caroline!" Her mother gasped as the two women rushed to each other's arms. Elizabeth pressed a tender kiss to her daughter's forehead and smoothed her hand over the hair at the back of her head. Caroline took a deep breath of her mother's perfume and her cries became sobs. She was promptly pulled back so her mother could cup her face. "Let me get a good look at you." Her mother insisted, Caroline chuckled through her tears.

"I probably look different." She admitted. When she'd left, she was a sullen, scared but beautiful 17 year old and now she was 25 and she had nothing to fear anymore.

Her mother inspected her daughter as Damon had and looked her up and down before nodding and kissing her forehead once more. "You look as beautiful as the day that I first held you in my arms. Though slightly rounder." She declared with a smirk before pulling her little girl back into her arms and rubbing her back. Her sons watched this whole scene with smirks and smiles.

A throat clearing disturbed the whole scene and all four of them turned to the King who was still stood in the doorway. Caroline blushed meekly and took herself from her mother's arms; she knew that even if she did stay in this realm, she wouldn't see her father again for a very long time. "Daddy." She muttered as she fidgeted with her hands. "I know that you wanted what was best for me all this time but that didn't mean that it still didn't hurt. You know I never wanted any of this." Caroline told him truthfully.

Her father softened as the father and the daughter stood a foot or so apart. "Are you happy?" He asked her.

"No." There was a bristle in the room at this confession, her father blanched. It was a carnal sin to admit that you were unhappy when you were royal; you were supposed to play nice and smile. "I'm happy to be here and see you all but I haven't been happy for a very long time. I've been treated well in my new land and the people love me but still I've been miserable and scared for years. I think that soon I might be able to be happy but I won't pretend that I have been full of joy for the last eight years in a marriage I didn't want." She explained.

"Can you forgive me?" He asked.

Caroline nodded, more tears spilling from her eyes as she did and she went to wrap her arms around her father's waist. "Of course, I forgive you." She whispered as her father squeezed his daughter tight and kissed her hair. She took a deep breath and sighed happily.

* * *

Klaus had truly wanted Caroline to be happy but when he saw her reunited with her family through the looking glass, he couldn't help but feel hurt. The more time she spent in the mortal realm being happy, the more likely she would be to stay there forever and leave him. He watched as she saw her mother for the first time in eight years and then forgave her father for his crimes against her before the family sat to eat like a proper family.

The last time Klaus had eaten with his family altogether, he had been much younger than he was now. He'd been able to walk in the sunlight. He'd actually been content with his life.

Klaus took a sip of wine, waving the image of Caroline and her family away at that somber thought and letting silence fall over the room. Lately, he'd tricked himself into imagining a future with Caroline in this realm, where he wouldn't have to be lonely forevermore. He could have a Queen by his side, and she would have his son. Klaus sighed heavily at the dream that seemed to be slipping away and finished the glass of wine, going to pour another before he could swallow the last of the summer wine down.

"Your Majesty..." Marcel's voice interrupted the King's solitude and Klaus turned to look at his advisor with distain before gesturing for him to continue. The younger of the two men looked nervous before speaking. "Your sister is in the throne room."

Klaus froze, looked at Marcel and stood up. "What?" He asked darkly.

"She just arrived. She wishes to speak to you." He explained, not wanting to incur the King's wrath on today of all days. Klaus had been moody and half drunk since he'd let Caroline leave and nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of whatever he did to get his frustrations out. Klaus blinked a few times, completely sober now and put his goblet down.

He hadn't seen Rebekah for a decade now, and they hadn't exactly left things on good terms. He'd teased her about her mortal lover of the decade and she'd become angry, leaving his realm whilst knowing Klaus couldn't contact her to apologize when he eventually felt guilty. "She didn't say why." Marcel filled in the blank.

"Nobody knows why my sister does anything, that's why she represents her entire gender." He replied as he took another gulp of wine for courage. Klaus could only guess why his sister was here, but he imagined that she had discovered her brother was pining after a mortal and had come here to spitefully remind him of how he'd looked down on her falling in love with a mortal herself. Marcel didn't react to Klaus' backhanded comment because like many of the spirits who served Klaus, he was smitten with Rebekah. Who wouldn't fall in love with a woman who would always be beautiful and never die, who could grant your desires and was that little but too trusting even after years of experience?

"What shall I say?" Marcel asked.

"I'll see her." Klaus told him as he finished off the goblet and cast one more look at the Looking Glass his sister and brothers had given him. He couldn't refuse see his sister after a decade apart, no matter the bad blood between them. He would do anything to see his family again but they would never all forgive him. Elijah always strove to see the good in him, but Rebekah and Kol were less trusting. His younger brother and Finn had little to say on the matter but agreed that Klaus needed to be away from the mortal realm. "It seems to be a day for reunions." He muttered.

* * *

Caroline sat on the balcony of the rooms she'd grown up in, watching the moonrise from the waterline when she heard the door open in her bedroom. Her parents hadn't changed the room since she'd left, and it hadn't been used either. She didn't know whether to be flattered or freaked out. The Queen brought the cloak Klaus had given her a little closer as her mother joined her on the balcony, finding her daughter sat on the bench left of the French doors. "Finally learnt not to sit on the wall." Her mother noted.

When Caroline and her brothers had been little, they had always sat on the half wall encasing the balcony and watched the tide come in on the beach below them. They would always madly dash to safely get down when they heard the footsteps of their tutors or parents, but had been caught more than once and reprimanded.

Caroline smiled sadly, as her mother sat down beside her. The younger woman laid her head on her mother's shoulder and Elizabeth wrapped her arm around her daughter's shoulders to keep her warm. "You shouldn't be out here in the cold." Her mother noted.

"I'm warm enough, you don't need to worry." She assured her mother as a breeze blew through her hair. Caroline didn't realize until her mother looked quizzical that she'd spoken half the sentence in her mother tongue and half in the language of her new kingdom. Caroline was fluent in both languages but she'd had little reason to speak her national dialect since she'd left home except for her brothers' visits. She preferred to read and write in the language she'd been born to however, liking the privacy it added to her letters as her husband and most of his court couldn't read, speak or write her language. Caroline blushed and repeated the phrase in the right language.

Her mother smiled. "I do worry; I worry every day about you." She told her daughter softly.

"I worry about you too, Mama."

"I think I've let your father convince me that you were blissfully happy in your marriage and your brothers were just exaggerating how sad you looked when they visited because you were such a sad little girl." Elizabeth began to muse. Caroline perked up and took her head from her mother's shoulder. "And that's our fault; we forced all this on you. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself that I let my daughter be so unhappy for so long." She added.

"Mama, I am going to be happy. I can just feel it; I haven't been for so long that I think I forgot what it felt but something inside me has changed. It wasn't until I got pregnant that I realised what happiness is like. I know what I have to do." She explained, taking her mother's hand and squeezing them. Elizabeth gave her an unsure look, knowing that a child was not a secure source of happiness as a woman who'd lost half of the children she'd given birth to. Her mother must have known that Caroline hadn't chosen not to have a child before now, and her age meant the risks were increased. The blonde squeezed her mother's hands once more. "Nothing's going to happen to me or the baby, Mama. I promise."

"I'm glad." Elizabeth replied softly before kissing her daughter's hair.


	10. Hearts Breaking

_"If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is_  
_almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later."_

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

* * *

Klaus found his sister in the throne room as Marcel had promised she would be and took in a deep breath to prepare himself. She was standing by one of the large arched windows where the moonlight was seeping in through the glass, wearing a dark blue gown and looking no different than the last time he'd seen her. Of course she wouldn't, Klaus thought to himself as he began into the hall and the doors were shut behind him to give them privacy.

"Well, if it isn't my little sister come to see me in my solitude." He spoke as he crossed the floor. Rebekah snorted, which he expected but that didn't mean that he liked it. Klaus glared as she turned to face him. Rebekah always looked strange in the moonlight, she was meant and born to be in the sun. Not that she looked as less beautiful or alluring to the men of the underworld, but she was a child of the sun, he could almost feel the heat of the sun from her.

Rebekah gave him a return glare. "Solitude, Nik? It doesn't seem that you've been living in solitude lately." She asked with an arched eyebrow, her hands clasped in front of her as she spoke. Klaus knew in that moment that he was completely and utterly busted. She knew, which meant Elijah and Kol knew, which meant Finn knew, which his mother definitely knew. Klaus swallowed thickly and tried not to look scared of his little sister. "Where is she?" Rebekah asked, her eyes flickering to the door.

"She's gone." Rebekah raised both of her eyebrows at this response and Klaus knew that she had come here to scrutinize and ridicule the blonde that he'd been practically courting for the last 5 months, the human Queen that he'd fallen for. "I sent her to see her family. It was what she wanted." Klaus explained, taking a few steps closer to his little sister as he spoke.

"Well, she can't be gone too long, not with a cursed baby in her belly. That child is practically a ticking clock." Rebekah sniped, dusting off her skirts where they had shifted around slightly in her movements. Klaus glowered, wanting to remind Rebekah that it was she and their brothers who had put the curse on him in the first place and in turn cursed his child to never see the sunlight. But he didn't want to go down that path.

"I assume that our Mother told you?" He asked.

"She's the goddess of fertility and motherhood, she's known the whole time. It wasn't until Elijah told her about the missing mortal Queen and the ensuing panic that she spoke up about it." Rebekah reminded Klaus as she began over to a table that had been set up with some food and wine for the visiting immortal. Klaus followed her as she poured them both a glass of wine. Klaus took the goblet offered to him and took a deep sip, needing to be drunker for this conversation to continue.

"Mother sends her congratulations, by the way." She added derisively before taking a sip of her own wine. Klaus watched his sister's slow movements and could tell that she didn't share in this sentiment. Klaus smirked over his goblet and took another sip himself as she continued to glare. "Even if she thinks that your actions are misguided and meddling in the mortal realm, Mother has always dreamed of grandchildren." She told her brother in a matter of fact tone, judgement lacing her every word.

"Is that really what she thinks or is that your thoughts on the matter?" Klaus asked.

"I have no thoughts on the matter." She shot back.

"Come now, your judgement is palpable, Rebekah. I can practically see it rolling off you in waves. Please just say what you have to say and be done with it so we might be able to enjoy some time together without your condemning eyes watching my every movement." He told her, knowing that he got her right where he wanted her, into a place where she would have to confess what she really thought instead of using their mother as a thin veil for her contempt.

"Fine! You're a hypocrite to start with. How many times have you staged accidents or blatantly dispatched any mortal men that I cared for so you might torture them here in the afterlife? And now you fall in love with a mortal, a married woman no doubt!" Rebekah started. It had been true that Klaus had arranged for Rebekah's suitors to meet tragic ends so they might become his subject. Rebekah had never understood that he was trying to protect her from men who only saw her as power and beauty, not as a person. Klaus did not need such protection.

"All those men were idiots."

"And this Caroline of yours isn't? She trusted you." Rebekah spat. Klaus glowered when she called Caroline an idiot for believing in him but didn't move except to clench his goblet a little tighter and clear his throat. "She's a Queen, her child is the heir to two kingdoms; you're playing with the courses of nations and countless people's lives as if they were nothing. If she suddenly goes missing, accusations may fly, battle lines may be drawn, people might die." She reminded him as if she could see the future. She couldn't, that was Finn's repertoire.

"If Caroline chooses to live in the mortal realm, then that's her choice. I've already supplied the means for her to do so if she wishes." Klaus told her tersely, still not liking to imagine that scenario. Klaus couldn't bear to picture watching Caroline return to her husband's side and raise their child as a mortal Prince, even if she did find happiness in that path. "If she chooses to return to this realm, then she will do so in a way that will not mess up that eternal chess game you play in the mortal realm."

"A chess game you once played." Rebekah reminded him. Klaus stiffened.

"Well, perhaps I'm back in the game and I currently have the Queen." He told her.

"You really think that you can give her and that baby a life here, Nik?" Rebekah asked, her voice now devoid of judgement or bitterness but now full of curiosity and seriousness. Klaus blinked once in shock, having expected some sort of scathing retort from his sister rather than a genuine question. "You may have earned a lifetime in the darkness but as far as I can see, Caroline did not and her child is completely innocent of the sins of its father. Why drag them down into this Hell for your own satisfaction when you know they would live a happier life in the mortal realm?"

"Because I cannot follow them into the sun." Klaus replied. "And we both know that that won't be changing anytime soon." He added, knowing that he would probably never see the sunlight again except for through the Looking Glass. He sometimes had dreams where Caroline and their son played in a sunlit field whilst he watched from a distance, unable to reach them but still content to just watch the sunlight in Caroline's hair and the laughter of their child fill the air.

There was a moment of silence between the siblings as they recognised the human moment between them. Rebekah took another sip of her wine and stared into the dark red liquid to avoid her brother's broken-hearted stare. Klaus put his own goblet aside and tried to fill the silence again.

"It's completely Caroline's choice; however she chooses, she has my blessing. I have given her all the cards, I am not the one playing the game anymore." He commented quietly before straightening up and beginning out of the room, leaving Rebekah alone. Klaus knew she wouldn't leave his realm; she would most probably stay the night. He paused at the door, which opened by themselves. "I would be glad if you would join me for dinner." He added before disappearing through the doors.

* * *

Caroline sat in her bed that night, drinking her tea and feeling the child kick restlessly within her stomach. They had been like this for a few hours but the tea was slowly settling them so she might be able to get some sleep. It was the second of the three days. Tomorrow would be her last dose of the potion, the day after that she would have to make a decision. Stay here in the mortal realm or return to Klaus' side.

"What do you think, little one? Where would you like to live? Here or with your father?" She asked, rubbing her stomach. The baby just continued to kick and wriggle around in her womb. Caroline rolled her eyes; she should have known that her baby would be completely useless in any decision-making processes. "Well, that's no help. You're worse than your father." She grumbled before finishing the tea and putting it aside.

She settled down on her back and switched to her side, punching the pillow to fluff it up and support her head. "I guess it wouldn't be so bad to go back, we would still live in a palace and you would still be a Prince." She spoke to her stomach, the only soul she could talk to about these matters. Caroline couldn't exactly ask her mother for advice on this matter; they would lock her up and proclaim that she was mad. "But then you would never get to see the ocean or feel the summer heat. Never get to play with your Uncles." She added.

Caroline didn't want to remind herself that if she stayed and returned to her kingdom, her son would probably only see his uncles once a year and may never meet his grandmother. That thought made her insides curl up in hatred of her kingdom and her father and her husband. When she'd been young and new to the idea of being betrothed, her governess had painted her a picture of her being a hero who would protect her kingdom from war. The lives of their soldiers and innocents rested on her marrying a man she didn't know, and how brave was she to do it.

She'd contemplated all the alternatives. Caroline had considered running away and living a simple life in the woods by herself to avoid her marriage, but she was scared of the uncertainty and the things that lived in the woods. She considered ruining her virtue so that Enzo wouldn't marry her and the marriage contract would be void, but she risked a war by doing such a thing. Caroline had spent her whole life trapped in a corner with no options and now she had every option with no idea which path to take.

She sighed and closed her eyes, the moonlight filtering through the curtains that hung over the large ajar windows to bring in the breeze. It smelled like the ocean and Caroline loved that smell. It brought about memories of going down to the beach with her brothers and swimming in the sea until her governess called them away from the choppy waves, it brought about memories of picnics with her mother and brothers. It was a smell she hadn't smelt in years and it practically brought tears to her eyes to think she would never smell it again.

Just as the Queen began to fall into a deep slumber, there was a knock at the door and she was jolted from her dreams. Caroline didn't call to let the knocker in but they entered a moment later, almost blinding her with the candlelight that still shone in the hallway. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "What is the meaning of this? Do you know what time it is?" She asked the maid impatiently.

"Sorry, Your Majesty but there's someone here to see you." The maid insisted, curtseying as she spoke.

"Tell them to go away and come back when I'm rested and it is a more social hour. It is far too late for politics or social visits." She snapped, already falling back into the bed and closing her eyes. Caroline grumbled as the maid began around the bed so she was standing by the edge. The brunette began to shake Caroline's shoulder incessantly. She opened her eyes and snapped once more, "What is it?"

"It's not a social visit, Your Majesty. The gentleman insisted that he see you in private and paid me not to tell anyone that he was here." The maid explained, her eyes flickering to the doorway where Caroline could feel a shadow looming. She swallowed thickly and pressed her lips together, trying to control the gut wrenching feeling of fear to turn around. She slowly sat up and turned to see the figure in the doorway, blinking away her tears.

"Good Evening, Caroline." Her husband spoke softly.

"Good Evening, Enzo." She spoke with a tearful voice, pulling the sheets up to her chest even though she was covered. Enzo didn't look wicked or even angry but she was still scared of what he would say or make her do. Caroline's lips shuddered as she turned to the maid. "Leave and don't tell anyone that you saw the King." She insisted, reaching into her drawer and bringing out a gold coin as a form of persuasion. The maid took the coin and left the pair alone.

"It seems that we need to have a conversation." Enzo spoke calmly as the maid ducked past him and a few moments later, the door to Caroline's main chambers closed behind the maid. Caroline swallowed thickly and nodded, unable to speak from the shock. One hand snuck under the sheets and rubbed her stomach, reminding her that she wasn't carrying his child at all, but Enzo really believed that she had run off with his heir in her belly. "I'll give you a few minutes to freshen up and wait outside." He told her tentatively, almost affectionately before beginning back into the parlour and shutting the door behind him.

* * *

In the Kingdom of Souls, Klaus glowered as he watched this scene and nearly smashed the glass in his hand out of anger. Why hadn't he checked to see whether the King had begun the journey to Caroline's land? Klaus thought angrily to himself, he would have never sent her if he'd thought that her husband would have been able to corner her like this. Rebekah sat by his side in a chair that had been brought for her and watched. "Nervous?" She asked him.

Klaus didn't answer.

Rebekah almost smirked and continued between sips of wine. "They have a history together, they may not be in love like a man and wife should be but they can sympathise with each other. He was as forced into this marriage as she was." She reminded him analytically as Caroline brushed through her hair, tears dripping from her eyes. "If anyone can convince her to stay in the mortal realm where she belongs, it will be the man she vowed to stand by before God." She told him.

Klaus waved away the image and glowered at his sister, he couldn't bear to watch anymore whilst she made snide comments. "Why are you still here, Rebekah?" He asked her before taking a deep sip to finish off his wine.

"Call it morbid curiosity." Rebekah replied as she put her glass aside and looked at her brother with an emotion akin to pity. "Sometimes I feel overwhelmingly guilty for what we did, and usually a trip down here makes me feel much better when you act like an arse. But this time, I think you might be due some happiness and maybe this girl can give it to you though I have no idea why. She doesn't seem very committed to the idea of being the Queen of the Dead." She mused.

"I thought I was an irresponsible hypocrite." He sniped as he stared into space.

"You are but you always were so it's nothing new." Rebekah quipped as she refilled his wine glass and then hers. She then stood and cast her brother one more look before beginning out of the room. "I'm going to be in the gardens if you need me, it looks like this is a domestic argument that you'll want to spy on." She called behind her as she disappeared through the archway. Klaus huffed and waved his hand to bring back the image as Caroline began through the doorway into her parlour.

She stammered through her first words.

* * *

"E-Enzo, I-" Caroline knew she had to try and explain why she had just upped and left him without any word and made the kingdom think that she might be dead but her words were interrupted by her husband wrapping his arms around her tightly and almost knocking the wind out of her. She stood shocked for a few moments as he buried his face into her neck and rubbed her back. Caroline sighed and pressed her forehead into his shoulder, rubbing his upper back to reassure him.

"I'm so glad that you're okay, Caroline. I was terrified that something had happened to the pair of you." He told her as he raised his head and brought her to hold her at arm's length, looking her over. She bit her lip as his eyes scanned over her bump and her pale skin, a sad consequence of living in a moonlit world for a week. "You're cold as ice, are they not wrapping you up warm here?" He asked her.

"They're looking after me very well." Caroline insisted. "How did you know where I was? How did you get here?" She shot off.

"I set off two days after you disappeared, if you were going to run away anywhere it would be to your parents. You always speak about missing them so, and I knew that sending an ambassador wouldn't get you back." He explained, rubbing her shoulder and bringing her over to the lit fire so she might warm up a little. "Caroline, why didn't you tell me that you weren't happy? Anything could have happened to you both on the journey," he asked her almost tersely.

"Well, maybe I didn't want to give you a chance to poison me." She sniped back, warming her hands on the flames. Enzo's eyes went wide and he asked her who had told her that. "It doesn't matter; you were going to have me taken care of when the baby was born and make it look like I died in childbirth."

"Caroline, I promise you that you are perfectly safe by my side. My advisors suggested it and I thought about it in a moment of weakness but I realised that I made a promise to look after you. How could I possibly look after our child with a clean conscience knowing that I had poisoned his mother?" He replied, trying to get through his explanation as fast as he could. Caroline remained firm though her lower lip trembled a little. "Caroline, come home and I will never hurt you." He vowed.

"I don't have a home." She replied. "It isn't here anymore, and it isn't in your kingdom." Caroline spoke as she realised her words. The castle she stood in now felt foreign and cold though it was exactly the same as it had been when she'd been a child. She couldn't feel at home here and she couldn't return to her kingdom with her head held high or without looking over her shoulder every second for the next conspirator. Enzo looked confused and forlorn at her response.

The moment the words left Caroline's lips, she knew that they were lies. It wasn't until she spoke the lie that she realised the truth of the matter. "I have a home but it's not with you, Enzo." She whispered.

After a long couple of moments of silence, Caroline sniffed and stood. "Please leave, I will see you in the morning. I imagine my parents would like to see you." She told him before going to her bedroom and shutting the door behind her.

* * *

**Preview of the Final Chapter: The Bells' Tolling **

The baby kicked underneath her dress as tears dripped down her cheeks, she didn't even get to say goodbye to her family.


	11. The Bells' Tolling

**Final chapter here! This story was always deemed to be shorter than my others but now we're here. This was the ending I had planned from the beginning, it came with the plot bunny. I just hope you guys enjoy it. **

**Thank you for all the reviews and love! **

* * *

_"Sometimes we make up a fantasy world to help us_  
_erase horrible memories from our past."_

- Dark Shadows

* * *

Caroline sat beside the oak tree, twirling the letter opener she'd found in her hands as the potion sat in her lap. She'd escaped her room after Enzo had left, she couldn't wait another day to decide whether she would stay in this world. She couldn't face the questions when Enzo revealed to her parents that he hadn't given her his blessing to come here, that she'd run away and had been missing for more than week before turning up in her kingdom.

The baby kicked underneath her dress as tears dripped down her cheeks, she didn't even get to say goodbye to her family. That was the point of this trip, of leaving Klaus: to say goodbye and make her peace. The last time she'd seen her brothers was when they left the dinner table that night, Stefan had placed a kiss on her forehead and told her that he would see her at breakfast, Damon had given her a quick but firm hug before disappearing out the door with a promise of 'later, sis.'

But there wasn't going to be a later.

Her mother and her had spoken whilst she combed out her hair that night, talking like they always had when she was a girl. When her time to retire had come, her mother had given her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, telling her to sleep well. And her father had done the same before he'd gone to some late night council meeting with her brothers. He was probably still in the meeting now as the moon shone above her, she leaned back into the bark of the tree.

In the end, there had only been one choice, one way that this was going to go. Caroline picked up the potion bottle and threw it by the wayside, letting it roll away into the long uncut grass at the roots of the trees. She wiped her eyes and put the letter opener to her skin, digging it in to make the first cut and revelling in the pain.

* * *

Stefan and Damon had known Caroline since she was a baby, when she needed calm and to think, she went to nature. When they were children, they had found her in the gardens, by the beach after running after from the castle and carried her home before their parents could discover that she'd been missing and punish her.

She'd run away a lot but never very far, she'd never seen the point of trying to make a real escape. They would just find her and bring her back no matter how far or near she was when they caught up to her, she'd told her big brothers one time when they found her pouting on the beach at age 11. Stefan still remembered the sullen expression on their sister's face as she spoke, too sad and pensive for a young girl, princess or not.

"Caroline!" Damon shouted out as they trekked through the large gardens that their mother had spent years working on. They'd played in these gardens during the happy years. Their lives had unravelled the year Caroline turned 8 and suddenly that happy and pleasant girl was gone, replaced with a future Queen. He pushed aside a branch of a willow tree as Stefan held the lantern in one hand. "The maid said they'd seen her coming into the garden."

"Caroline could have bribed her." Stefan suggested. "Caroline!"

Damon almost passed the oak tree that was about 50 metres from them when he saw the flash of blonde hair in the moonlight. "Wait, look she's there by the oak tree." He told his brother with a triumphant smirk and tapping Stefan on the shoulder to get his attention. They would have her back in bed before the chill could get to her and cause any damage. "Caroline!" He called to his sister as they both began over to her.

She didn't respond and they both shared a look. That was normal; she didn't like to speak when she was sad. But as they approached the tree, they saw that she was slumped against the tree. "Did she fall asleep?" Stefan asked. They would have to carry her to bed then, and she probably weighed a lot more with the baby in her belly. Damon, slightly ahead of his little brother, suddenly stopped dead and Stefan froze. "What is it?" He asked, studying his brother's face. A look of horror and confusion adorned Damon's features.

Then Stefan saw it too. Blood.

Damon raced into action and kneeled down by his sister who was practically melted into the bark of the tree, completely relaxed. The only tense muscles in her body were the hand gripped the letter opener, the tip still against her wrists. Blood slowly seeped from the deep wounds in either wrist and onto her dress, the grass, and the blade in her hand. Damon shook his little sister's shoulder with vigour.

"Guards! Someone get a doctor, wake the Queen, and get the King!" Stefan shouted back to the guards that had been sent to help them find the princess and knelt beside his sister. The guards paused to take in the scene with shock before turning back and shouting commands, prepared to wake the castle. "Come on, Caroline…" Stefan begged of his little sister as he began to rip off parts of her skirts to bind her wrists and staunch the bleeding like he'd done when she'd cut her knee on thorns as a girl.

"Stefan…" Damon said to make his brother pause, his fingers against Caroline's jugular with a sombre expression. The words that Damon said next ripped a hole in both of the boys' hearts and worlds.

"There's no pulse. We're too late. They're both gone."

* * *

"I'm sorry to hear of your wife's passing, Your Majesty." Enzo sat in his council chambers as his advisor entered the room. He'd been back in his kingdom a few hours now, and for the most of it he'd been sitting alone in this room. The older gentleman took a seat opposite the King and began to speak again. "I heard that her body would not be buried in the Cathedral?"

"I attended the funeral in her land; she would have wanted to be buried there with her family. She never found a home here." Enzo insisted, staring out of the window as he did so. He could still see her cold, pale face in the open casket. Her blonde hair had been washed of blood and her wrists wrapped in cloth and covered by her gown to disguise the scars and the wounds.

"Your Majesty, the Queen lived here for 8 years and the people in this land will want to pay their respects." His companion replied.

"And they will be able to at a memorial service. I will not drag her body across the oceans and away from her final resting place; I will not disturb her peace any further. Let her rest and there will be a service and a period of mourning in this kingdom. The bells are already tolling." Enzo replied in a snap, looking at his councillor with a terse look. The nerve. In the background, the bells did indeed toll a dull, mournful tune that told everyone that a member of the royal family was dead.

"About that, Your Majesty…" The councillor was an old man with greying hair and circle glasses on the end of his nose. "Rumours have begun to spread as to the Queen's cause of death…what with the rumours surrounding her pregnancy. Some more…acidic commentators have even dubbed her the Mad Queen."

"She wasn't mad."

"Her maids locked the door to her chambers every night and she was guarded around the clock yet her journals describe adventures to some underworld. Or what can be made out from the ramblings. I'll never know how she managed to sneak out and get to the port without being noticed." The advisor laid a hand on the journal in question. Enzo hadn't even realised that the journal existed until they found it under Caroline's mattress whilst searching her room for clues. "The ship captain she paid to take her to her land had no idea who she was, but he could hear her talking about herself in her cabins the whole journey."

"Well, I don't trust the testimony of men who will take a pregnant women on a dangerous sea voyage for a few gold coins." Enzo replied tersely.

The advisor went on. "Her palms and arms had multiple scars according to her doctor; she was always muttering under her breath, she never slept. All of court saw it. All the signs were there, perhaps the stress simply got to her…" He added.

"I won't have her remembered like that." Enzo insisted. "She was a good person, and she deserves more than to be remembered for the last few months of her life. She didn't know there was anything wrong with her life; I saw that in her land. Caroline only saw what she wanted to see. She made up a fantasy to reject reality, maybe it started years before she came to this kingdom and the stress on her shoulders to produce an heir was the last straw."

"Even bargaining with some magical King to father her child? A magical potion that she had to drink?" The older gentleman asked, peering over his glasses. "The potion in question is used throughout pregnancy for the health of the child but according to the court physician, madness can be a side effect. Or it can increase a madness that already lay dormant and lead a perfectly sane woman to do unspeakable things."

"Like killing herself and her child?" Enzo asked hollowly, looking him in the eyes. There was a moment of silence between the two men before the King stood so he was looming over his advisor. "My wife and my child are dead, and she will be remembered as the Queen that she was. Everyone in this kingdom, including you, will pay their respects and remember her as a girl who gave her life for her kingdom." He ordered.

The advisor flustered and began to speak again but Enzo interrupted him again.

"And I will not hear talk of another marriage or heirs for at least a year as would be customary in her kingdom, if any of my councillors wish to defy these wishes then I will be more than happy to relieve them of their duties." He ordered before beginning out of the room and shutting the door.

* * *

"I've been thinking about what she said." Stefan announced as he and Damon sat in one of the many rooms of the palace. It had been a week since they'd found their baby sister on the grass, stained with her own blood. Their mother had refused to see the body until she had been cleaned, dressed and her wounds stitched up and wrapped for the grave and even then, she had only been able to manage a few minutes of seeing her baby's pale, emotionless face.

Damon looked up at his brother, the pair of them dressed in black.

When a member of the royal family died in this kingdom, the entire country stopped. For three days after the death, marriages were frowned upon and anyone married in this period was considered to be cursed with bad luck. Most of the people would wear black for an entire month after the death and refuse to drink wine; the bells would toll sombrely once a day throughout the land. The spouse of the deceased would be in a mourning period for a year where marriage was considered an unholy sin and an act of disrespect to the dead. "When?" He asked his brother.

"On her birthday, she said she would go mad and kill herself." Stefan told Damon as explanation between sips of the spirit in his hand. Wine may be off limits but they would need a lot of spirits to get through the next month of mourning. "We didn't believe her."

"We couldn't predict what would happen to her, Stefan. For all we knew back then, she could have gone there and been blissfully happy." Damon reminded his brother, the pair of them out to blame themselves for their sister's death and the other determined to clear them of guilt. But they had been the only ones in her family who'd seen her on a regular basis since she'd left aged 17.

"Damon, the first time we saw her after her wedding, she wept in our arms and begged us to take her home and we didn't listen, we told her that she would get used to it and adapt. We should have marched her home there and then and maybe she wouldn't be lying in a coffin right now." Stefan snapped back. The funeral had taken place two days after the death, a small private affair but the coffin was sitting in the Cathedral so people could travel and pay their respects to their princess.

"We had a lot of chances, Stefan but so did a lot of people. If anyone is to blame, it's Father for forcing her to go in the first place. He pushed her and pulled her like a doll so he could make her perfect for her new life and she broke." Damon replied before sipping his own drink. The brothers had little to say to their father since their sister's death, they knew that he knew he had a large part of the blame and they hoped the guilt ate him alive like it ate them alive. Caroline had forgiven him but they hadn't so easily let him off the hook. "Do you think she was mad? They're saying she was deranged back in her own kingdom." He added.

"I've heard the rumours." Stefan snapped back. "What sort of sane woman would kill herself and her child? That child is never going to see the light of day and our baby sister is dead, that's the facts whether she was mad or not." He asked rhetorically. "Maybe there's some comfort in madness, seeing what you want to see and not what the world really is. Maybe she died without pain and she was truly content with her decisions." He added as he leaned over and picked up the small potion bottle they'd found by their sister's body, examining it in the moonlight.

"Eight years of pain for a moment of content. It doesn't seem like a fair deal to me." Damon replied with a shake of his head.

"She's in a better place now, Damon."

* * *

Caroline woke to the sounds of whimpering, opening her eyes and sitting up in her chambers in the palace. She stretched her tired muscles and threw her legs over the side of the bed, standing up and beginning over to the cradle by the window so the baby inside could see the moon through the thin blinds. The baby boy inside was squirming and his little face was crinkled terribly as he began to cry. "Oh, my poor baby boy." She smiled, lifting her son out of the crib and held him against her chest.

He quietened almost instantly, still whimpering a little as he clutched at his mother's nightdress. "He just wanted some attention from his mother, I see." came a deeper voice from the bed and Caroline moved back to the mattress and sat down, her boy still in her arms. Klaus was lying in the sheets, arm thrown over his eyes but peeking up at the mother and son as she gave him her thumb to distract himself with. He giggled slightly and she kissed the top of his head. "I can't say that I blame him."

Caroline didn't remember how she'd gotten back to the Kingdom of Souls but she remembered how she'd wept with joy when she woke in her bedroom in the palace, Klaus sitting at the fireplace waiting for her. She'd rushed from the bed to his arms and let him hold her tight until she stopped crying for what she'd lost and what she'd gained. She wasn't about to leave this Kingdom again.

Then their son had arrived a few short months later after a day and a half of labour that drove Klaus up the wall with nerves. He knew that she would be okay, but the relief he'd felt when he'd first seen his Queen and their son in the bed they were lying in now, exhausted and both weeping, was like nothing he'd felt before or would again. They'd named him William after her father, though Klaus initially objected, and Caroline took to calling him Liam pretty quickly since she hated Bill.

"He's so perfect, sometimes I think I'm about to wake up back in the palace and none of this is real." She told him with a smirk as William squirmed, attempting to break free of his mother's grip and reaching towards his father. Klaus smirked and offered his pinkie finger to his son so he could grab it, forgetting his mother's thumb in exchange. Klaus didn't answer and Caroline furrowed her brow. "This is real right?" She asked curiously.

"As real as you and me." Klaus replied, the only answer he would ever give to that question and leaned up to kiss her lips before she could reply. Caroline smiled against his lips and kissed him back for a few short seconds before realising their son was still in her arms and pulling back. She looked down at their son and kissed the top of his head as a knock sounded through the chambers. The baby boy looked up at the noise and gurgled. "Come in."

Marcel entered with preamble, more than used to seeing the King and Queen in such a state of undress with their son. Caroline smiled in greeting but didn't say anything, distracted by William's grabbing at her nightgown. "Sorry to disturb you, Your Majesties, but your Mother wishes to see you." He told the King, who raised his eyebrows and cast a look at Caroline. She too was surprised, she had yet to meet any of Klaus' family in person though they had sent a gift of a dream catcher that really protected against bad spirits and dreams to hang over their son's crib upon his birth.

"Well, I'm sure you can find something for her to drink and eat whilst we make ourselves presentable." He told Marcel, beginning to get out of bed. Marcel made a noise that spoke 'well….', causing the royal couple to look up. "What?"

"Actually, she isn't here. She offered an invitation for you to visit her in your realm with Caroline and the Prince." He explained. Klaus and Caroline shared another look, knowing what this meant. They were going to lift the curse from Klaus, he could enter his home realm with his Queen and son and see his family. Caroline breathed a smile of disbelief and kissed William's forehead, whispering that they were going to go on a trip together.

"Well then, we best indulge her."


End file.
